    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                  WESTERN HEMISPHERE DRUG INTERDICTION EFFORTS

    =======================================================================

                                    (114-21)

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                    COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION

                                     OF THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                       TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JUNE 16, 2015

                                   __________

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                 COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

                      BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
    DON YOUNG, Alaska                    PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee,      ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
      Vice Chair                             Columbia
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                JERROLD NADLER, New York
    FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey        CORRINE BROWN, Florida
    SAM GRAVES, Missouri                 EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
    CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan          ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
    DUNCAN HUNTER, California            RICK LARSEN, Washington
    ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas  MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
    LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania           GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas              DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
    BOB GIBBS, Ohio                      STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    RICHARD L. HANNA, New York           ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
    JEFF DENHAM, California              JOHN GARAMENDI, California
    REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin            ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              JANICE HAHN, California
    TOM RICE, South Carolina             RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            DINA TITUS, Nevada
    RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois               SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
    MARK SANFORD, South Carolina         ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
    ROB WOODALL, Georgia                 LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    TODD ROKITA, Indiana                 CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
    JOHN KATKO, New York                 JARED HUFFMAN, California
    BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   JULIA BROWNLEY, California
    CRESENT HARDY, Nevada
    RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
    GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana
    MIMI WALTERS, California
    BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
    CARLOS CURBELO, Florida
    DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
                                    ------                                7

            Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation

                      DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
    DON YOUNG, Alaska                    JOHN GARAMENDI, California
    FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey        ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
    BOB GIBBS, Ohio                      CORRINE BROWN, Florida
    MARK SANFORD, South Carolina         JANICE HAHN, California
    GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana             LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    CARLOS CURBELO, Florida              JULIA BROWNLEY, California
    DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina         PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York                  Officio)
    BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
        Officio)
                                    CONTENTS

                                                                       Page

    Summary of Subject Matter........................................    iv

                                   WITNESSES

    Vice Admiral Charles D. Michel, Deputy Commandant for Operations,
      U.S. Coast Guard:

        Testimony....................................................     3
        Prepared statement...........................................    30
    Rear Admiral Karl L. Schultz, Director of Operations, U.S.
      Southern Command:

        Testimony....................................................     3
        Prepared statement...........................................    36

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Written statement of Michael P. Botticelli, Director, Office of
      National Drug Control Policy...................................    76

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                  WESTERN HEMISPHERE DRUG INTERDICTION EFFORTS

                                  ----------

                             TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2015

                      House of Representatives,
              Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime
                                        Transportation,
                Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:15 p.m., in
    room 2253, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter
    (Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Mr. Hunter. This subcommittee will come to order. Welcome
    everybody. The subcommittee is meeting today to review the
    Federal Government's efforts to confront transnational drug
    smuggling and stem the flow of illegal drugs to the United
    States.
        Let me start by saying I had a great trip down in Florida
    with you, Admiral Schultz, great, great time with JIATF [Joint
    Interagency Task Force] and General Kelly, and I got to see
    firsthand the problems that our Nation faces in stemming the
    flow of illegal drugs to our shores.
        My visit to the Coast Guard units as well as JIATF South
    was insightful. I was able to witness the impact limited
    resources and deteriorating assets is having on the Coast
    Guard's ability to effectively carry out its drug interdiction
    mission.
        The flow of illegal drugs to the United States continues to
    be a problem. Illegal drugs placed a strain on our Nation's
    healthcare and criminal justice systems. Their smuggling routes
    and methods are easily translated into transport routes for
    other illicit goods that pose significant safety and security
    concerns to U.S. citizens.
        Some of the most notorious and violent criminals, cartels,
    and narcoterrorists are directly responsible for drug violence,
    crime, and corruption that are destabilizing foreign nations
    and endangering the lives of American citizens here and abroad.
    Representing southern California, I am very aware of the harm
    violent drug traffickers inflict on our communities.
        In recent years, violence stemming from the drug trade has
    spilled over the Mexican border and has led to the kidnappings
    and murders of American citizens and U.S. law enforcement
    officers. It was only a few years ago that a Coast Guard
    servicemember lost his life during counterdrug operations near
    Santa Cruz Island, California.
        Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne was
    leading a boarding team when he was critically injured
    interdicting and apprehending illegal drug smugglers. The Coast
    Guard recently announced it will honor Senior Chief Horne's
    sacrifice by naming a Fast Response Cutter after him.
        The Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, and allied partner nations
    continue their efforts to stop boat drug shipments at sea.
    Interdicting shipments of drugs at sea before they are broken
    down into smaller packages is the most effective and efficient
    way to stop the flow of illegal drugs across our borders.
        The Coast Guard is the lead agency in maritime interdiction
    because it has unique military and law enforcement authorities
    which enable it to seamlessly disable a drug smuggling vessel,
    seize the drugs, and arrest the crew. But that only works when
    the Coast Guard, SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command], and partner
    agencies and nations have the resources and assets to act on
    intelligence targets.
        Unfortunately, however, cuts to the military's budget,
    sequestration, and aging and rapidly failing Coast Guard assets
    are undermining mission success. In recent years, SOUTHCOM and
    the Coast Guard were only able to interdict slightly more than
    20 percent of the cocaine bound for the United States. That is
    roughly half the national target for 2015.
        In addition, the Coast Guard has been consistently unable
    meet its internal performance goal for drug removal in the
    transit zone. In fact, since 2009, the Coast Guard has only
    achieved its cocaine interdiction target once. I hope today's
    hearing will help clarify the direction we need to take in the
    future to ensure our men and women in uniform have the
    resources and assets that they need to carry out this and other
    critical missions.
        With that, I yield to Ranking Member Garamendi.
        Mr. Garamendi. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
    thank you for holding the hearing and for the witnesses. It is
    good to see you once again and look forward to your testimony.
        This hearing is very, very important. We need to understand
    our efforts and the effort of our international partners to
    interdict the flow of illegal drugs into the United States from
    points all across the Western Hemisphere.
        At the hearing convened last April, I stressed that the
    current age of budgetary austerity, it remains essential for
    Congress to scrutinize every drug interdiction program to
    ensure that the various Federal agencies involved are best
    coordinating and utilizing their resources to the greatest
    effect in the transit zone. That sentiment is just as valid
    today as we take up this matter again.
        Additionally, I also voice concern about the imminent
    operational gap that the Coast Guard will have to contend with
    its aging legacy fleet of High and Medium Endurance Cutters as
    they are decommissioned or laid up more frequently for
    emergency repairs and maintenance.
        If anything, the recent hearing last month on the Coast
    Guard acquisition activities further corroborate my belief that
    the Coast Guard is going to be extremely hard pressed to
    maintain its existing capabilities, much less increase the
    tempo of their operations, and as you suggest, Mr. Chairman,
    make their bogey, that is, to get the number of drugs that they
    intend to.
        This raises the fundamental question, if the Coast Guard
    operational readiness and capability is likely to be degraded,
    at least until we begin to see the delivery of the new Offshore
    Patrol Cutters, where can we turn now to find the assets and
    resources necessary to plug the hole? Unfortunately, it would
    appear that the Navy is not where we will go. They are scaling
    back the number of frigates and other assets it deploys through
    SOUTHCOM to support the JIATF operations.
        Moreover, despite the fact that the transit zone across the
    Western Hemisphere is roughly twice the size of the continental
    mass of the United States, other bureaus within the Department
    of Homeland Security continue to disproportionately allocate
    resources to reinforce the southern border, notwithstanding the
    data demonstrating that the maritime routes are becoming the
    preferred option for international criminal syndicates, and if
    supplemental resources are not going to be forthcoming soon,
    this leads us back to another fundamental question.
        How can we reasonably expect the Coast Guard and other
    Federal agencies, for that matter, to accomplish their vital
    missions? As I stated at the last hearing: If we want to
    succeed in our efforts to prevent illegal drugs from entering
    our country, we can no longer ignore the fact that inadequate
    Coast Guard budgets have left the Service out on the precipice,
    and until we have resolved the issue of this reality in full,
    we are far more likely to see more illicit drugs, more illegal
    migrants and other harmful contraband crossing our shores.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. I thank the gentleman.
        And before we introduce our witnesses today, I would like
    to introduce some gentlemen that just came in, World War II
    merchant mariner veterans. I just want to say thanks for being
    here, gentlemen. Appreciate it.
        In fact, we are trying to get ahold of Ms. Janice Hahn, who
    has been carrying your legislation, our legislation now for
    quite awhile, and I just want to let you know that we are
    working on it, so thanks for being here. Appreciate it.
        Our first witness today is Vice Admiral Charles D. Michel,
    the Coast Guard's Deputy Commandant for Operations. Vice
    Admiral, you are now recognized.

    TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL CHARLES D. MICHEL, DEPUTY COMMANDANT
      FOR OPERATIONS, U.S. COAST GUARD; AND REAR ADMIRAL KARL L.
         SCHULTZ, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND

        Admiral Michel. Sir, before I start my statement, with the
    committee's permission, if I could just take a couple of
    minutes to talk about a breaking news item.
        Mr. Hunter. Absolutely.
        Admiral Michel. Sir, this is a picture of a semisubmersible
    that the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted this morning in the
    eastern Pacific. It was interdicted at first light by one of
    our Coast Guard units, and our Coast Guard units are on board.
    They have control of the vessel. They also have four detainees
    on board, and it is estimated 3,000 kilos of cocaine, or 3
    metric tons of cocaine are on board this vessel.
        We will have to pull it off to actually count it, but that
    is what the initial estimates are. As you can see--and I will
    pass around the picture of this vessel. This is a classic
    semisubmersible. It is about 50 feet in length. You can see the
    water-cooled exhaust that they put in place here to keep heat
    sensor detection down. You can see that it is painted to match
    the color of the ocean. It is almost undetectable. I will pass
    this around.
        I can't answer any specific details in the open forum here,
    but after the hearing, I am happy to talk to you about the
    details of this interdiction, but this is what we are facing
    today, sir, and this was taken down this morning.
        Mr. Hunter. Way to go.
        Mr. Garamendi. Congratulations.
        Admiral Michel. Well, sir, congratulations to the Nation,
    and this is really a whole of Government team, including JIATF
    South that was engaged in this. It was the Coast Guard that
    took it down, but there is a lot more going on there than just
    the Coast Guard.
        So with your permission, I would begin my statement.
        Mr. Hunter. Please.
        Admiral Michel. Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member Garamendi,
    members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
    testify today on Coast Guard drug interdiction operations. My
    complete statement has been provided to the subcommittee, and I
    ask that it be entered into the record and that I be allowed to
    summarize my remarks.
        Mr. Chairman, we continue to face a significant threat from
    transnational criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere
    that use drug transit routes to the southern approaches of the
    United States. These illicit networks are advancing their
    deadly trades with coercion, intimidation, violence, and near
    impunity in our closest neighbors and in our border regions.
    Transnational criminal networks destabilize our neighbors,
    exploit our citizens, endanger public health, and threaten
    regional stability, and national security.
        Last summer's influx of over 50,000 unaccompanied children
    was a tragic symptom of the region's instability and violence.
    Parents by the tens of thousands decided that it was better to
    turn their children over to human traffickers, who we call
    coyotes, for a chance of life in the United States rather than
    to live in countries wracked by some of the world's highest
    homicide rates resulting from transnational organized crime.
        In September of 2014, Admiral Zukunft signed the Coast
    Guard's Western Hemisphere strategy that calls out three
    strategic priorities: combatting networks, securing borders,
    and safeguarding commerce. This strategy recognizes that the
    Coast Guard is uniquely positioned to attack a key center of
    gravity of transnational criminal networks.
        The unmatched capability of maritime interdiction allows
    for the interdiction of concentrated, often multiton loads of
    expert quality drugs at sea before they can reach land and be
    broken down into small quantities that not only become
    extremely difficult to police but also cause death and
    devastation as they make their way to North American markets.
        The cocaine trade, in particular, is uniquely vulnerable as
    the existence of the Darien Gap means that virtually all
    cocaine exported from South America must at some point during
    its journey travel by air or maritime means. This movement
    exposes conveyances to sensors and interdiction.
        In addition, maritime interdiction often allows for the
    assertion of U.S. jurisdiction over the witnesses and evidence
    vital to identifying and attacking transnational criminal
    organizations closest to the head of the snake. Maritime
    interdiction against mostly go-fast boats, however, typically
    require sophisticated detection monitoring techniques in vast
    ocean spaces and an endgame carried out by flight deck-equipped
    cutters with embarked day/night airborne-use-of-force
    helicopters.
        Coast Guard ships are the Nation's and our neighbors'
    defense forward against the transnational criminal threat
    beyond our land borders, beyond Mexico, and beyond Central
    America. When we detect a suspect vessel, our cutters,
    helicopters, and highly trained pursuit boat crews have a
    nearly 90-percent interdiction success rate.
        Over the years, our operations have become extremely lean
    and efficient with the vast majority of interdictions happening
    as a result of intelligence cueing. In the last month alone,
    the Coast Guard has been involved in 22 counterdrug cases that
    have resulted in the arrest of more than 50 suspects, the
    removal of more than 12 metric tons of pure uncut cocaine on
    the sea, and that does not include this interdiction that I
    showed you this morning, sir. And denial to criminal networks
    of more than $400 million wholesale in drug proceeds.
        While we have made substantial improvements in our tactics,
    techniques, and procedures, resource constraints leave us able
    to target only 37 percent of the high-confidence intelligence
    cases, almost always due to a lack of surface vessels.
        To close this gap, the Coast Guard has undertaken four
    specific initiatives. We have increased our offshore presence
    to interdict drugs at sea, the initial results of which are
    encouraging. We have continued to build upon the 43
    international maritime law enforcement bilateral agreements and
    work closely with the Department of State and our international
    partners in these interdiction efforts.
        We are fully integrated in in Secretary Johnson's vision
    for unity of effort and the DHS [Department of Homeland
    Security] task forces to secure America's southern border and
    approaches, and we continue to move forward with the
    acquisition of the affordable Offshore Patrol Cutter.
        Recapitalizing the medium endurance cutter fleet with the
    OPC [Offshore Patrol Cutter] is the Coast Guard's number-one
    investment priority and is critical to our offshore presence
    and core missions. By the time we begin laying the keel for the
    first OPC, some of the legacy cutters they are scheduled to be
    replace will be more than 55 years old, well beyond their
    intended service life.
        The time to recapitalize the fleet is now, and we are on
    schedule to award OPC detailed design in fiscal year 2016. In
    summary, the Coast Guard continues to exploit the unique
    benefits of maritime interdiction to combat transnational
    criminal networks. This forward defense of the Nation and the
    region applied at a critical center of gravity for
    transnational criminal networks requires highly specialized
    maritime assets and crews that are capable of countering a
    well-equipped, adaptable, and ruthless adversary.
        Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today
    and for all you do for the men and women of the United States
    Coast Guard. I look forward to hearing your concerns and
    questions. Thank you.
        Mr. Hunter. Thanks, Admiral.
        Our next witness today is Rear Admiral Karl Schultz, the
    Director of Operations for U.S. Southern Command. You are
    recognized, Admiral.
        Admiral Schultz. Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member Garamendi,
    members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
    appear before you today on behalf of General John Kelly,
    commander, U.S. Southern Command. I look forward to discussing
    how the U.S. Southern Command works with the Coast Guard to
    defend the southern approaches to the United States.
        Every day, our southern approaches are under direct assault
    by sophisticated criminal networks whose smuggling operations
    reach across Latin America and deep into the United States.
    These groups exploit every land, sea, and air border to traffic
    drugs, people, and weapons throughout the Western Hemisphere
    and beyond. Their corrosive activities pose a direct threat to
    our national security and the stability of our partner nations
    in the region.
        Mr. Chairman, it will take a network to defeat a network,
    which is exactly what SOUTHCOM, the Coast Guard, our
    interagency, and international partners are building through
    multinational counterdrug operations, and capacity-building
    efforts in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean
    Basin.
        As you know, the Department of Defense has a
    congressionally mandated statutory responsibility for the
    detection and monitoring of illicit drugs in the air and
    maritime domains. Our Joint Interagency Task Force South
    executes this responsibility working with agencies from the
    Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the
    Department of State, and partner nation defense and security
    forces to disrupt illicit trafficking and dismantle criminal
    organizations.
        JIATF South has long been the gold standard in leading and
    orchestrating successful interdiction operations. Last year,
    the JIATF South team supported the disruption of 158 metric
    tons of cocaine. That is 76 percent of the total amount of
    cocaine seized by all U.S. Government agencies.
        JIATF South's continued success, however, could be in
    jeopardy. Due to other global defense priorities, limited
    Department of Defense resources are available to source the
    counterdrug mission, and we have been forced to rely heavily on
    Coast Guard support, including their personnel, aircraft, and
    cutters.
        Come this September, the U.S. Navy will have a minimal
    presence in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Mr. Chairman,
    for all intents and purposes, the Coast Guard is U.S. Southern
    Command's Navy, which is why we share and echo the Coast Guard
    Commandant's concern over the Coast Guard's ability to sustain
    its aging fleet while recapitalizing its fleet of Fast
    Response, Offshore, and National Security Cutters.
        As an economy-of-force geographic combatant command, we at
    U.S. Southern Command are concerned by the limited availability
    of Department of Defense assets, including U.S. Navy frigates,
    airborne ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance],
    and national technical means to support our missions. For both
    the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard, asset shortfalls
    and potential asset failures are the greatest threats to our
    ability to defend the United States against the relentless
    onslaught of transnational criminal activity and illicit drugs.
        Finally, I will close by noting that the possible return of
    sequestration would be disastrous for the counterdrug mission.
    It will undermine our ability to remain engaged with our
    partners, undermine our awareness of threats in the region, and
    undermine our ability to stop them before they reach our
    shores. I look forward to discussing these and the other issues
    with you. Thank you.
        Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Admirals.
        I am going to start by recognizing myself, and then the
    other Members for questions. I guess my first question is, if
    you take the Department of Justice, and you take the Department
    of Homeland Security, and you basically take everything else
    that is under that umbrella, including the DEA [Drug
    Enforcement Administration], the FBI [Federal Bureau of
    Investigation], local police forces for everything, you can
    probably guess, do you have a number for how much they spend on
    drug interdiction to get to that 24 percent of the total annual
    amount?
        So if you take--if you interdict 76 percent, it leaves them
    with 24 percent, I am just curious about the money spent for
    each one--each bang for the buck there.
        Admiral Michel. Those figures are available. I don't have
    them, but I can provide them on the record. There is a question
    for the record.
        Mr. Hunter. Could somebody on the committee just Google
    that maybe while we are doing this? Let's just find out what
    the number is. If you can get all the other--I am just curious.
        Admiral Schultz. What I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, from a
    DOD [Department of Defense] perspective, about $25 billion goes
    into the drug budget, writ large. About $5 billion of that is
    allocated; about $3.7 billion across for interdiction efforts;
    I think $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion for international efforts;
    about 20 percent of that drug budget goes towards what I call
    the JIATF South world to work there. JIATF South consumes about
    1.5 percent of that $25 billion budget, to give you a sense. I
    can't speak to the other agencies to your specific question
    but----
        Mr. Hunter. That is just DOD?
        Admiral Schultz. Well, the JIATF South piece of DOD of the
    $25 billion total drug budget is sort of how those numbers
    shake out.
        Mr. Hunter. But the DOD total drug budget is about $25
    billion.
        Admiral Schultz. That is the U.S. Government----
        Mr. Hunter. Oh, that is the entire. That is the whole
    effort.
        Admiral Schultz. Entire drug budget, across the U.S.
    Government, writ large, yes, sir.
        Mr. Hunter. All right. Makes sense. Let's go really quick
    to interdiction performance because I--we talked about this the
    last hearing we had. We got into how the standard gets raised
    or lowered kind of based on every year going forward, and the
    baseline can get moved as well, which makes it hard for us to
    figure out where the real baseline was or is and where you
    really come from where you were, right.
        I do know that you said JIATF South, they increased their
    hits last year, right, meaning your average take was--you were
    hitting 20 percent. Now it is more towards 30 percent?
        Admiral Schultz. Sir, JIATF South is currently targeting
    about 36, 37 percent of the known activities. You know, if you
    get down to the success metrics, that is a different set of
    numbers, but we are targeting about----
        Mr. Hunter. But you are up over last year.
        Admiral Schultz. Up over last year, and then when you look
    at--after you target them, the next step would be how do you go
    about detecting and monitoring them. We detect and monitor
    about 70 percent of what we target, so start with a number say
    1,250, you look at about one-third of that, and then within
    that, about 70 percent of those, you are actually putting
    detection and monitoring assets against.
        When we go out there and fly a Maritime Patrol Aircraft
    against a target, we are successful--a very high preponderance
    of an endgame--almost 90 percent of those that we target and
    then detect, we actually get a disruption or a seizure at the
    end of the day.
        Mr. Hunter. So it is not possible, though, for the--for
    JIATF South's interdiction percentage to go up and the Coast
    Guard's, their numbers, or their goals met to go down, is it?
        Admiral Schultz. Sir, our numbers at SOUTHCOM and JIATF
    South are inextricably linked to the Coast Guard's numbers. I
    mean, come this fall, the Coast Guard essentially is the only
    U.S. Government ship-providing game in the business here. We
    will have some PC-179 patrol craft from the Navy, but it is a
    Coast Guard game. As I mentioned in my opening statement, the
    Coast Guard is SOUTHCOM's Navy moving forward.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. So then my last question then is, so tie
    those together. How could the Coast Guard reduce performance
    target for cocaine, let me see, from 18.5 to 13.8 percent in
    fiscal year 2015, so how can yours go down then as SOUTHCOM's
    go up?
        Admiral Michel. I am not sure exactly.
        Mr. Hunter. Or am I missing----
        Admiral Michel. Well, there is--it is a little more
    complicated than that. So JIATF South supports disruption of
    cocaine not only by the Coast Guard but also by other U.S.
    Government agencies as well as foreign partners, so they may
    assist the Government of Colombia or the Government of Canada
    or the U.K. or the Dutch or the French who contribute ships to
    this effort as well as the Central American partners, so they
    have got a broader scope than the Coast Guard.
        The Coast Guard itself is supported by JIATF South, and our
    numbers have been pretty consistent, and it looks like ours is
    just a matter of ship effort. So we have already--last year we
    interdicted 91 metric tons of cocaine. That is what the Coast
    Guard was actually able to interdict. So far this year, just to
    date in this fiscal year, we are at 83 metric tons, not
    including the 3 that were on this semisubmersible, and we have
    still got 3 months of the year left to go.
        So we are going to up our numbers, if I were guessing on
    trajectory here, probably up to 110, 115 metric tons when we
    get done here.
        Mr. Hunter. And again, this is your--your performance
    targets are a percentage of the whole that you know about? What
    is it a percentage of?
        Admiral Michel. So the removal rate is based on--the
    numerator is the amount of known cocaine removed from the
    system, and the denominator is the U.S. Government's best
    estimate on the amount of flow that moves through the Western
    Hemisphere Transit Zone, and their confidence factors that go
    in there. It is based on production estimates, so you know,
    over the imaginary of cocoa fields and things likes that, plus
    known interdicted events with a certain degree of confidence,
    and then the Coast Guard is accountable for a portion of that.
        Last year was 13.9 percent of that Western Hemisphere
    Transit Zone that the U.S. Coast Guard was accountable to get,
    and we got about 9 percent. And the long pole in the tent there
    is just simply numbers of ships. There was more actionable
    intelligence that would have allowed us to meet the goal down
    there, but we didn't have the ships to be able to do it. It is
    a pretty simple story.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. And to be clear again then, that is a
    percentage of the known flow, not the number of ships you are
    able to send out to interdict, right?
        Admiral Michel. That is correct. The removal rate is based
    on the known flow, and the USG [U.S. Government] target, writ
    large, USG was 36 percent of that flow was the entire USG
    target of which the Coast Guard is responsible for 13.9 percent
    of that.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. Thank you, Admiral. I yield to the ranking
    member.
        Mr. Garamendi. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually three
    sets of questions. Now the first is on assets, the availability
    of the Coast Guard, how do you intend to bridge the gap if the
    Navy is pulling out and the Offshore Patrol Cutters are not,
    for another 2 years, assuming that they are actually going to
    wind up in that area, how do you intend to bridge the gap? That
    is one question. Let us deal with them one at a time, and then
    you won't have to write notes about the questions. So Admiral
    Michel.
        Admiral Michel. Well, sir, that is the rub, ultimately, and
    our Commandant made an affirmative decision to increase our
    number of ships that we commit to the JIATF South effort in the
    Western Hemisphere Transit Zone by over 50 percent, and he did
    that by taking risk in additional Coast Guard mission sets.
        I don't want to talk too much about that in this forum
    because some of that involves LE, law enforcement presence in
    other vectors, but the Commandant took a calculated risk
    because he felt the need to commit resources to that area to
    provide for regional stability and national security because
    those countries down there are really in a fight in addition to
    all the impacts that they have here.
        So the way that we are bridging that gap is we are
    providing the best quality ships we can provide down there,
    which is our National Security Cutters, which have the best
    sensor capabilities, the best day/night AUF [airborne-use-of-
    force] capability, which the Commandant has also plussed that
    up on our commitment of the airborne-use-of-force capability,
    which is critical to stop the go-fast boats, which is about 80
    percent of the traffic moves on go-fast boats.
        The other part is to continue to develop our intelligence
    mechanisms that will allow us to get at that other 30 percent
    that Admiral Schultz talked about there that we target but we
    can't detect because of lack of wide area surveillance or other
    type of intelligence capabilities, the ability to buy that
    down, and then trying to use every type of TTP [tactics,
    techniques, and procedures] and asset that we have, whether it
    is from a helicopter or pursuit boat to ensure that when we get
    those detected assets, that we are actually able to interdict
    then. And then we are waiting for the new assets the come
    online, sir.
        Mr. Garamendi. So we have got about a 2-year, maybe a 3-
    year period of time here in which it is going to be touch and
    go. What are the role of the other countries in the area? You
    mentioned Colombia, the Coast Guard, Colombia's Coast Guard,
    Panama, and so forth. Would you speak for a few moments about
    that?
        Admiral Michel. Yes, sir. Well, a number of countries down
    there have some good capabilities. Mexico, for example, has
    really good capabilities, and Colombia has good capabilities as
    well. Most of the other partners have very dedicated people but
    very small boats and essentially no detection and monitoring
    capability.
        When I was JIATF South Director, for the majority of the
    Central American partners, we had to actually commit an
    aircraft to walk a go-fast boat onto their small craft because
    they had no radar, they had no detection capability at all, and
    probably won't have any for a long time. So they are committed
    forces and well-trained people, but they are not very well-
    equipped.
        There are other partners down there that do have good
    equipment, the French, the Dutch, the Canadians, the U.K. have
    had ships in the area and continue to work in the area, and
    those are obviously high-end quality ships, and we try to use
    those as much as possible. So you have got kind of a mixed bag
    on the local partners.
        I will say this about most of the local partners. They also
    have no real prosecution back end. So one of the critical parts
    about getting U.S. jurisdiction is the ability to exploit those
    cases for intelligence value to allow you to identify the
    networks and feed the intelligence cycle, and some of the
    partner nations, the people go in there, and we are not sure
    exactly sort of what happens to them, but we are not able to
    get intelligence value from them, sir.
        Mr. Garamendi. Let's continue on with the other countries.
    There has been talk of a billion-dollar foreign aid program for
    the triangle countries in Central America, and that is part of
    this puzzle, it would seem to me. And also, how do you interact
    in the training programs that apparently are going to be
    diminished?
        Admiral Michel. I will talk about mine, and then SOUTHCOM
    also has a large piece in this. Yes, there is a billion-dollar
    piece, and a chunk of that, about one-third of it is for
    security-related pieces. The Coast Guard actually plays in all
    the different areas, security, governance, and prosperity
    because of our port security work, our work with the legal
    teams that we send down there to make sure that they have got
    adequate laws and things like that to take care of maritime
    trafficking.
        But we have mobile training teams that we put into place
    down there who work on them on outboard motor maintenance or
    working on their communications capability, try to train them
    to maintain their equipment and how to do law enforcement. We
    have also stood up for the first time our support to
    interdiction and prosecution teams which are composed of a
    Coast Guard investigative service agent as well as some of our
    maritime law enforcement experts who work with the Central
    American countries to try to ensure that they can take that
    interdiction that we help them with and they can bring it into
    their court system and provide the witnesses and evidence to
    actually gain prosecutions as well as gain the intelligence
    value from the cases.
        Mr. Garamendi. You have been doing about 2,000 students a
    year. Are you going to be able to maintain that, given the
    budget cuts?
        Admiral Michel. Sir, my understanding is that the training
    money for the foreign nationals is on track, and part of that
    money comes from the Department of Defense and State
    Department. The Coast Guard has no organic foreign affairs
    authority. Most of the work that we do with foreign nations is
    done at somebody else's request, so it is funded through either
    State Department or DOD, typically under their programs.
        Mr. Garamendi. And finally, if I might, Mr. Chairman, the
    issue of unmanned vehicles both on the water or under the water
    and in the air. What efforts are you making to work with the
    military or others and your own efforts on these unmanned
    vehicles?
        Admiral Michel. So from a Coast Guard perspective, we have
    fielded right now the small unmanned aerial systems, the
    ScanEagles, and they are on a number of our cutters, including
    our National Security Cutters, and we operate those now. We are
    also a partner with CBP, Customs and Border Protection, in
    their Guardian unmanned aerial system program, which is
    essentially Predator B, a marinized Predator B, and we have
    worked with them, and they have actually deployed the Guardian
    down there into JIATFS AOR [Area of Responsibility], both in
    the Dominican Republic and also out of Comalapa, which is a
    cooperative security location in El Salvador.
        The Coast Guard is actually making its determination now as
    to where we want to place our investments in this very dynamic
    unmanned aerial system, you know, whether we would want to go
    with a shipped-based system, which has some attractiveness but
    you got to be able to recover it, or whether we use a long-
    dwell, land-based system, and what type of sensor capabilities
    and back-end processing piece would we need in order to do
    that.
        But we work hand in hand with the Department of Defense,
    and that is one of the great advantages the Coast Guard brings
    to the table is we have got all the connections with DOD to try
    to learn the lessons before we sort of make the big jump on
    unmanned aerial systems.
        Mr. Garamendi. I for one, and I suspect the rest of my
    committee colleagues here, would like to be kept abreast of
    your plans with regard to these vehicles; also, how you will be
    collecting and analyzing the data.
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, just on the UAS [unmanned
    aerial system] piece from a DOD perspective, to echo Admiral
    Michel, absolutely. We continue to use the Predator when it is
    available. You know, I would say the maritime solution for the
    UAS, as sophisticated it is in the land domain, what we have
    seen in the Middle East area. We are not quite there over the
    water, and there is some limitations in terms of where you can
    operate that, in terms of it is almost essentially a tether to
    it. You have to have a ground-based radar or shipboard radar,
    but we are very interested in how do you advance that, how do
    you bring those capabilities into the theater.
        We do use a Global Hawk for some ISR responsibilities,
    capabilities, capacity in our AOR. We get that on a couple-of-
    mission-a-month basis, but we are employing them as well. Not
    specifically in the maritime domain but in the SOUTHCOM
    equities.
        If there is a second, sir, to go back to just the country
    team participation, the question you asked there. From U.S.
    Southern Command's perspective, you know, we have almost 6,000
    to 8,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, coastguardsmen in the
    SOUTHCOM AOR on a day-to-day basis. I would say the bulk of
    their effort down there is along supporting the transnational
    organized crime, combatting that mission set.
        So in Guatemala, we have the interagency task force at the
    Mexican-Guatemalan border. There is one in the--that they are
    working on on the Honduras side. There is one down in the
    southern part of Guatemala. The plan is to build out a couple
    more of those task forces. We have got about $15-$17 million
    invested towards that. That is to help the Central American
    countries establish some border security within their own
    domain.
        Between us and INL [Bureau of International Narcotics and
    Law Enforcement Affairs], we are putting a lot of--while some
    of the countries that Admiral Michel mentioned don't have a lot
    of big ship capability, there is some patrol boat capability,
    and then there is--we, with INL, are both buying interceptor-
    type boats, so while we may not have a ship--and again, there
    is no replacement for a Navy ship, no replacement for a Coast
    Guard cutter, but what we do do is bring some endgame
    capability. If an aircraft can traffic a vessel in, we have
    some pretty sophisticated interceptors, Boston whalers, we have
    them in the Dominican Republic, we have them in the Central
    American countries.
        Some countries prefer that we retake some refurbished
    former seized boats, eduardonos, which is a local domestic boat
    down there. And then we have got a special purpose Marine Air-
    Ground Task Force operating with 250 Marines in Honduras in the
    sort of ungoverned spaces in the northeast coast right now.
        So we have got a lot of building partnership capacity stuff
    going on, and your question was Central America focused, so I
    kind of constrained myself there, but on a day-to-day basis, we
    are training, we are equipping things like night-vision
    goggles, just essentially helping them bring governance to
    regions where there are very little of that today, and that
    really props up the security part of the equation.
        Mr. Garamendi. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank
    you for the extra time.
        Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentleman.
        The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized.
        Mr. Sanford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess what I would
    like to do for one second is go up 30,000 feet, and so this is
    not a commentary on how hard your men and women are working,
    the quality of their efforts, the hardiness of their pursuit,
    but really a macro question, because I remember being in
    hearings like this the last time I was in Congress. I remember
    going down to Howard Air Force Base, and I remember at that
    time there wasn't enough money in drug ops to send up an AWACS
    [airborne warning and control system] every day of the week,
    and so they would send one up once a week, once every 2 weeks.
        And then the smart drug runners, they simply paid for a
    spotter, when the plane goes up that has the big dish, let us
    know, and then like the really stupid guys, the uninformed
    guys, they would still send a boat running north, and you would
    look at these films out of an F-16 in pursuit of the boat, they
    are throwing the drugs out of the boat, and once the boat is
    emptied, they would turn around, you burned a bit of jet fuel,
    you got a good video, but that was about it, and it was sort of
    catch-and-release.
        In contrast, I remember at that time, as part of our
    payments to Peru in the drug ops war, they had a shoot-down
    policy, and I remember watching videos of planes actually being
    shot down in Peru. And so it just seems to me that in war, it
    is either war or it is not. And what we have had for a long
    while in this country is sort of a middle ground when indeed
    you and the Navy and others do their duty. But in terms of
    actual result, really there isn't that much in the way of
    result.
        I mean, any time you look at equation wherein 75 percent of
    what you are trying to stop is going through, then about 25
    percent you are stopping, I mean, you have to question the
    validity of spending, you know, $25 billion, 6,000 folks, as
    you just mentioned, in this effort, in terms of result. And you
    look at how scarce dollars are in the American system, how much
    scarcer they are going to get going forward. I mean, Alan
    Simpson and Erskine Bowles, their point was the most
    predictable financial crisis in the history of man is coming
    our way, given the squeeze financially that we are going to be
    in as a country. And therefore we have, I think a requirement,
    whether in this committee or any other committee, to fund those
    things that actually work.
        And so this is not about, again, the validity of your
    effort, you guys are working hard, but at the end of the day,
    the end results, I found wanting, and in contrast, one more
    data point. I remember being down on a drug ops trip, again,
    last time I was here, and there had been like 4,000 judges
    killed in the country of Colombia. I mean, it was all out war
    down there, and so I--you know, I just really begin to
    question, are we doing anything? What is your thought on that?
        Admiral Michel. Well, let me just take a quick stab. So
    when I first started in the Coast Guard in the mid-1980s, I was
    actually assigned on a patrol boat out of Fort Lauderdale,
    Florida, and I would chase go-fast boats laden with cocaine
    right there into Miami Harbor, and those were the days of the
    Cocaine Cowboys where Miami was really on the brink. Those were
    the days of the shootout of the Dadeland Mall and all those
    things, and I can tell you, sir, we are a long ways from those
    days.
        We have chased those guys back down through the Caribbean.
    They are still there but not in the numbers that they were back
    in those days, and now they are in Central America. There is a
    huge amount of progress that has been made. We interdicted----
        Mr. Sanford. No, we just moved the border. I mean, you say
    the Bahamas, you couldn't take a trip in the Bahamas without
    worrying about pirating in the Bahamas. You don't have to worry
    about pirating these days.
        Admiral Michel. And the reason that is, sir, is because of
    the efforts that we put in place here. It is the same reason
    that the country of Colombia is actually a productive and
    advancing country when it almost was a basket case at one
    point. So we have made tremendous progress. Is there a lot more
    work to do? Yes, sir, there absolutely is a lot more work to
    do, but for anybody to say we have not made measurable progress
    on this, I think, is misinformed.
        Mr. Sanford. Well, in terms of volume of drugs coming into
    this country, we haven't really moved the needle there.
        Admiral Michel. Well, sir, we continue to have that because
    we continue to want to trade with the world. If we decided to
    completely shut down our borders to all trade, we probably
    could stop this trade, but we try to balance that out----
        Mr. Sanford. And I would reverse it.
        Admiral Michel [continuing]. With our law enforcement
    efforts with other society desires.
        Mr. Sanford. What I would respectfully submit is that when
    in the history of man has supply not met demand?
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, I would just offer, I think
    if General Kelly were sitting here, he would tell you our
    country's insatiable appetite or demand for drugs has sort of
    put the region, what we call the transit zone, the Central
    American countries as sort of the meat in the sandwich between
    the Indian Ridge and producers. I think we have an obligation
    to aid and probably be part of the solution set here.
        I would make an analogy to speeders on the highway. I have
    teenage drivers. I know there's a lot of speeders on the
    highway. I know there's not a lot of police officers out there,
    but I go to sleep at night knowing there's some police officers
    that keep some semblance of order out there, and I would say in
    the drug war, the transnational crime combatting efforts is
    sort of, you keep the lid on it. What we are here telling you
    with more effort----
        Mr. Sanford. Or does it do the reverse?
        Admiral Schultz [continuing]. You stop more.
        Mr. Sanford. Does it raise the profit margin?
        Admiral Schultz. Sir, I would say if you look at domestic
    cocaine use in this country, it is at a low that it's been in
    recent years, prices are fairly high. I think the efforts that
    the men and women that are fighting this fight, both from U.S.
    Government forces, from international partners, from partner
    nations, are having an impact there. Again----
        Mr. Sanford. Some people say it is based on demographics,
    the fact that our country is aging, and the fact that somebody
    in their 50s may not be wanting to do what they were doing in
    their 30s or their 20s.
        Admiral Schultz. Yes, sir. I think we have got kind of an
    emerging epidemic with heroin use right now, and you know, I
    think with 8,500 deaths in this country here in the last year
    alone from heroin use, I think folks are seeing folks in places
    like New Hampshire where you didn't think you had drug problems
    before, and parts of Kentucky where that is cropping up. And I
    think how we get our arms around that, I guess you could say
    you stop going after that or maybe we need to look at the fact
    that 45 percent of that heroin comes out of Mexico, 45 percent-
    plus is coming out of South America.
        Almost all of it now is coming out of this hemisphere
    through the same networks that the cocaine is coming up from,
    sir. So I don't disagree with you, but there is a lot of ways
    at looking at this, this challenge.
        Mr. Sanford. Understood. Understood. And again, I am not
    belittling in any way your efforts. I am just struggling with
    the overall aggregate in terms of numbers and the way in which
    this war--I remember seeing the statistics, the body bag
    counts, if you will, back when I was in high school, and us
    walking through those same body bag counts in terms of this
    much cocaine procured, this much marijuana stopped, but at the
    end of the day in a lot of small towns across America, somebody
    being able to buy whatever they want in some, you know, corner
    of town, and which says to me, obviously, we still have a
    problem.
        I see I burnt through my time, though. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Mr. Hunter. I refuse to be yielded to until the--is the
    gentleman suggesting that we do what?
        Mr. Sanford. That is the $94 question, and I really
    appreciate the chairman putting me on the spot like that. But I
    guess what I am struggling with, in watching this for a long
    number of years is do you spend more money and more time in
    affecting demand as opposed to trying to curtail supply. I
    mean, I think that is the big economic question out there, and
    that is ultimately not one that you all will resolve.
        You are doing your duty, you are doing your part, that
    which you are charged, so I admire your work, but I think that
    is the $94 question we got to ask as a society is do we do
    something more. And again, a lot of this ties into stuff that
    is well beyond any of our pay grade, straight to the notion of
    family formation, a lot of other things that impact demand,
    poverty, you go down the list, but I think at the end of the
    day, the societal question we got to get our arms around is
    supply always equals demand.
        I remember reading in National Review, James Buckley, who
    is by no means a liberal, saying the war is lost. That was the
    front page of the National Review way back when, and he made
    the case, in that case for liberalization and for legalization
    and zombie farms out West. You would have some number of people
    lost in either equation, and do you look at it a different way.
        I don't know what the answer is, but I think that is the
    question we got to answer that ultimately is beyond your pay
    grade, and I suspect it comes down to the pay grade of the
    Americans--you know, and civilian population decide how do we
    address this problem.
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, I think both of us would tell
    you, we have sort of run our careers in parallel tracks over
    more than 6 years together. There is a balanced approach, you
    probably need both, but interdiction, I think, is clearly part
    of that equation.
        Mr. Sanford. I am less and less certain of that than I was
    20 years ago.
        Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentleman. And I would add, too, it
    is as much about drugs as it is--because you can get anything
    through the drug route that you can get drugs through, whether
    it is a weapon of mass destruction, whether it is weapons,
    whether it is some kind of chemical agent, the exact same
    routes that the drug smugglers take, the other bad guys who
    want to come in here take, too.
        Mr. Sanford. My take, Mr. Chairman, is if you lined up a
    couple of Marines on the border, it would take care of the
    problem.
        Mr. Hunter. Probably true. I would agree with that.
        The gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. Interesting discussion. I am going
    to follow up on that, but just first, quick question is, it
    sounds like what you are saying here today is that you need
    more assets to do a more effective job. Are the new assets, is
    it new technology or is it more of the assets that you have and
    you just need more of them?
        Admiral Michel. It is a combination of both, ma'am. There
    is a certain quantity that is necessary to get the work done.
    On average, a major ship from either the Coast Guard or the
    Navy working for a year gets 20 metric tons of cocaine, which
    is a huge quantity of cocaine per ship, but each one of those
    ships can become more effective if you have more advanced
    sensor capabilities which allow them to find things like the
    semisubmersible.
        I know you didn't see the picture of it, but we actually
    interdicted one of those this morning. I am sure they will
    share the picture of that with you and how difficult that is,
    and also the techniques for actually interdicting. So the
    airborne use of force which allows us to take on the go-fast
    boats. So it is a combination of both quantity, the number of
    ships that limit our ability to target, and then the better
    quality of the ship that allows it to have a better chance of
    detecting and interdicting that capability. It is a combination
    of both, ma'am.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. I now want to just follow up on Mr.
    Sanford's. I thought it was interesting questions you had. I
    will just say it in a commentary. I think we spend $310 million
    a month in Iraq and Syria, and I think that a lot of people are
    questioning that. But I would like you, if you could, in that
    context, I would like to hear you make the argument as to the
    national security argument. That's what I would like you to
    have a little more detail on, why you feel your mission is so
    important, how it affects our national security?
        Admiral Schultz. Congresswoman, I would say, and I think
    Chairman Hunter sort of opened up this dialogue. You know,
    General Kelly's first and foremost duty as a combatant
    commander for U.S. Southern Command is protecting the southern
    approaches to the United States for the security of this
    Nation. These same networks that allow drugs, you know, to the
    tune of--there's about 1,050 tons of cocaine that come out of
    the Indian Ridge, the sole cocaine producing region of the
    world on an annual basis, about 60 percent--660 tons comes to
    the United States.
        It is the same networks that move those drugs, that move,
    you know, trafficking and women to the tune of 18,000 or so,
    moving cash both ways, weapons, illegal migrants, special
    interest aliens, we saw upwards of 500,000 illegals last
    summer, a subset of 50,000-plus children, those are very
    sophisticated networks. These organizations are well financed,
    they are highly adaptive, and it doesn't take a lot of
    imagination to think the same network that could move cocaine
    could move, you know, a component to a weapon of mass
    destruction or something else. They can move an Ebola patient.
    You name it. The networks are sophisticated.
        You know, my boss sometimes makes analogies. It is like a
    FedEx operation. So when you think about the maritime
    interdiction of drugs and cocaine is what we are specifically
    talking about here, you know, we can get the bulk loads of
    3,000 kilos, you know, upwards of 7,000 pounds in one seizure
    at sea, when that ship offloads that to a couple of fast boats
    off of Guatemala or Mexico and it gets into the land border and
    gets broken down into small loads and coming across the border
    in the grille of a car in a 50-kilo load, our ability to stop
    that is very, very low at that point.
        When you interdict it at sea, there is no violence
    associated with that removal of 7,000 pounds of cocaine. When
    that cocaine hits the landmass, there is a lot of violence
    associated with that. There is a lot of graft and corruption
    associated with that, so the effectiveness is exponentially
    greater when we can push that border out and take that, you
    know, law enforcement endgame into the maritime domain.
        Admiral Michel. Let me just add one other little piece
    here. So I think you are probably aware, but in Mexico and
    Central America, a number of the countries down there have
    declared various states of emergency, and they have actioned
    their militaries to actually counter this, which is the number-
    one threat that they face down there. They don't really have a
    nation state on nation state war problem, but they have a
    transnational criminal organization network.
        It should concern every American that the Mexican armed
    forces are having to be on the streets of Mexico taking on the
    cartels because their law enforcement has been completely
    outstripped by these criminal organizations.
        When you look at El Chapo Guzman, Los Cano Los Cano from
    the Zetas cartel, or Trevino Morales from the Zetas cartel,
    they were not taken down by Mexican local police or even
    Mexican Federal police. They were taken down by Mexican marines
    who were there trying to defend their country against these
    transnational criminal organizations who basically rot the
    state from the inside out through intimidation, corruption, all
    the different things that they do, and this is one of our
    closest neighbors.
        And Mexico is a serious country. And to have a situation
    caused, at least in part, because of what American citizens are
    putting up their noses, to create that type of a national
    security situation in one of our closest neighbors should be a
    concern to every American beyond the public health problems
    that it creates in this country.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from
    Louisiana is recognized.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
    appreciate it.
        Admiral, thank you very much. It is nice to see you. You
    clean up well. Your old commander threads till today, good to
    see you.
        First of all, there was a hearing that the chairman had
    worked out with the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] that
    we had back in March where, Admiral Michel, you were there. And
    the topic was different but the theme was exactly the same in
    that it was talking all about the total maritime force package
    and the role that the Coast Guard plays in that.
        We talked at length about the fact that the--that you are
    only as strong as your weakest link and that the Coast Guard
    plays a critical role in that overall maritime total force
    strategy or total force package. And so we are sitting here
    talking about your capabilities. And we are talking about your
    ability to actually perform the mission that you are tasked
    with, whether it is drug interdiction, alien interdiction, and
    many of the other missions that the Coast Guard has had heaped
    upon it over the last several years.
        One of the things that we talked about a little bit in the
    past, I am going to bring it up again, the OPC. Can you talk a
    little bit about its role in you carrying out your duties,
    whether it is under the Cooperative Strategy for 21st-Century
    Seapower or it is your drug and alien interdiction mission?
        Admiral Michel. Well, it is absolutely critical, sir, in
    that the OPC is the replacement for the Medium Endurance Cutter
    which is the bulk and real workhorse of the Coast Guard's
    fleet, and we have got about 25 in the program of record of the
    OPC. The OPC is a sea state 5----
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. And I want to be clear, your MECs
    [Medium Endurance Cutters] are all aging out.
        Admiral Michel. The average age even if everything goes on
    schedule--average age for a 270-foot cutter when it comes off
    the line is 35, average age for a 210-foot cutter is 55.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. OK. So we are beyond service life.
        Admiral Michel. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. You need the OPC. It is going to
    give you better capabilities. I don't want to put words in your
    mouth, if you could agree or disagree with that. Could you
    agree or disagree that the OPC is going to give you better
    capabilities?
        Admiral Michel. It does provide better capabilities. It is
    a modern system and it is a sea state 5 capable ship.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. And it does help you--and again, I
    am not trying to put words in your mouth. I am asking for
    confirmation. It does help you to achieve your objectives
    within the overall maritime mission that you are tasked with.
        Admiral Michel. No question.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. OK. So then we get to the budget
    request, and in the budget request, as we have just spoken
    about in the past, you have some very confusing language about
    no funding in there, but you are going to transfer funding, but
    you haven't identified the source, and I am not saying you, you
    understand, my friends at OMB, perhaps.
        Can you talk a little bit about, about how these things
    actually line up? I mean, how is it that you are going to be
    able to achieve your mission in working together with the Navy
    and the other armed forces, how is it that you are going to be
    able to carry out your mission with regard to drug and alien
    interdiction and other missions the Coast Guard is tasked with
    whenever you are dealing with equipment that is well beyond its
    projected service life and there are not funds in the budget
    for you to achieve--for you to acquire new resources?
        Admiral Michel. Yes, sir. I mean, that is the quandary in
    the world that I live in, and I will just give you an example.
    So on our 210-foot fleet, which is the older one, right now we
    lose about 20 percent of our scheduled time due to unscheduled
    maintenance, so these are, you know, major whole failures and
    other things that happen on that class of ship, and that
    situation only gets worse with time, so we need to replace
    that.
        And the OPC, you hit the nail on the head. The current plan
    is that there will be an internal transfer within DHS of the
    roughly $69 million we need to do to proceed with detailed
    design work.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. But we don't know which couch to
    flip it over to find that?
        Admiral Michel. I don't want to phrase it that way. Right
    now, the best that I have is I have assurances that that money
    transfer is going to take place and that the OPC is on
    schedule.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. One of the other things I am going
    to--I changed gears a little bit, but certainly the OPC's
    capabilities in regard to source and transit zones makes sense,
    but just quickly, Mr. Chairman, if it is OK. I am curious,
    could you talk a little bit about its capabilities and in terms
    of the Arctic and ops up there?
        Admiral Michel. Right. So part of the reason it needs to be
    a sea state 5 capable ship is because this is not a one-for-one
    replacement with the Medium Endurance Cutter fleet. As a matter
    of fact, the 210-foot and 270-foot cutters, basically we tried
    to work those up in Alaska, and that is just too much weather.
    The distances are too great, and the weather is just
    horrendous.
        So those ships really do not work, the 210-, 270-foot
    cutters up in the Bering. But because we are not a one-for-one
    replacement, we have got to have more flexibility with the--
    where we can assign those ships, and with a sea state 5 capable
    ship, that OPC can actually operate on a seasonal basis up
    there in that Alaskan area where we need it.
        It is not going to be an ice capable ship or anything like
    that, but if you can understand that point, that is why we need
    sea state 5 capability because it is not a one-for-one
    replacement program.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Sure. And it will work
    complementary to your new ice breakers that we will be
    acquiring sometime soon, correct?
        Admiral Michel. Well, I hope so, sir. I know they are kind
    of a twinkle in somebody's eye, and we should probably have
    some discussion about that, but yes, sir, they are all designed
    to work together as a system.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentleman.
        The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
        Mr. Curbelo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this
    hearing, and I thank Rear Admiral Schultz and Vice Admiral
    Michel for their presence here today. As the Representative
    from Florida's southernmost district, I have a very special
    appreciation for the Coast Guard and its mission. Thank you for
    keeping our people safe and secure.
        I am hoping you can address generally this phenomenon we
    are seeing of drug transit routes shifting to the Caribbean.
    Have you seen a spike in the past several years and what impact
    has this had on your budget?
        Admiral Schultz. Good afternoon, Congressman, and so good
    to see you, and thanks for your support of the men and women in
    JIATF South. I know you were down there as recently as April
    here.
        Mr. Curbelo. Yeah that is right.
        Admiral Schultz. I would say in terms of the shift to the
    Caribbean, we have seen a shift in recent years here. I think,
    A, that shift is attributable to some of the successes we have
    had along the Central American corridor. Writ large, about 80
    percent of the cocaine that comes out of the Indian Ridge
    destined towards the United States comes through the central
    corridor, Central American corridor, some in the Pacific, some
    in the western Caribbean, but as we have had successes there,
    as we partnered with the Hondurans, their maritime shield, I
    think it is the balloon effect. You know, the squeeze of the
    balloon in that region has pushed some more activity to the
    eastern Caribbean route there, so we are aware of that.
        I think at the end of the day when you are dealing with a
    finite number of ships, and you know, the Coast Guard currently
    in this fiscal year had 6 ships--6.2 ships committed to the
    whole JIATF mission set here, that is across the EASTPAC
    [eastern Pacific] and the Caribbean. The Navy has had one ship.
    So you are taking seven ships on a good day, maybe some
    partnerships, and you are spreading them around, you know, we
    put some energy towards--at the JIATF, we put some energy in
    that eastern Caribbean route, but when, you know, you are in
    the teens, percentagewise, versus knowing 80 percent of it's
    moving in either side of the Central American isthmus there, it
    is sort of a--it is sort of their decision.
        But that said, there's a lot of challenges in Puerto Rico
    with increasing violence. Puerto Rico has a homicide rate five
    times that of here in the States. Domestically it is about 5
    per 100,000 people. I think it is 25 per 100,000 there, weapons
    coming in. So we are very in tune with that. The Coast Guard
    has been working Operation Unified Resolve there, and I will
    defer to Admiral Michel for specifics there, but as we at the
    Southern Command are working with the new DHS joint task force,
    working with other participants there, working with NORTHCOM,
    because NORTHCOM really, from a geographic combatant commander
    standpoint, knows the Puerto Rico region, we are looking at how
    do we bring some energy to that challenge.
        Politically, that has been a very hot area, so we are aware
    of that. So there is success there, and there is challenge
    there, and we are trying to attenuate that with a finite amount
    of bandwidth.
        Admiral Michel. If I could just add a couple of points
    here. One thing we watch very carefully is Venezuela. I think
    you have seen Venezuela has got some stability issues, and
    unfortunately, the traffickers are exploiting that, so we have
    seen what Admiral Schultz mentioned there about additional
    flows coming out of Venezuela, and a lot of those impact the
    Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean,
    so we are going to have to watch that very carefully.
        Also adding onto Admiral Schultz, the standup of the
    Secretary of Homeland Security's new unity of effort joint task
    forces, of which Puerto Rico and southern Florida are all
    captured within what is called Joint Task Force East, which is
    actually dual hatted with our land area commander up in
    Norfolk, but they bring the entire DHS family together, so CBP,
    ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], Coast Guard,
    the other supporting elements, all in the unity of effort
    format, along the lines of JIATF, if you know the way that they
    work, where they truly have a unified chain of command. This is
    not a sort of coordination element. This is real command and
    control from the Department of Homeland Security, and we are
    looking for great things from them along those vectors
    stretching into Puerto Rico and also south Florida. We are also
    watching the Cuba situation like we always do. Right now the
    Cuban Government is pretty good counterdrug, but we are going
    to have to see if that changes over time, but we watch that
    very carefully, sir.
        Mr. Curbelo. Since you mentioned Cuba, and with the
    chairman's dispensation because it doesn't have to deal
    specifically with drug trafficking, but we have seen a spike in
    migrant movement from Cuba to the United States. Do you
    attribute that to something specifically, and do you feel that
    you are prepared at this time for a potential mass migration of
    them?
        Admiral Michel. We did see a spike here at the end of last
    year and into the beginning of this year, and when we
    interviewed the migrants, they said we heard that the wet foot/
    dry foot policy was going to be changing, so we want to make
    sure we got there. We have had a public relations campaign out
    there telling people that that is not true and making sure that
    they understand what the facts are.
        And here over the summer, I think it has been relatively
    stable within kind of historic norms. And as always, we are
    ready for a mass migration, sir, and we watch that all the time
    and watch very carefully indicators and warnings both there and
    also in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and those vectors where
    we have got some issues percolating. So we watch that very
    carefully, but we are ready with our Homeland Security Task
    Force Southeast, which is specifically designed to deal with
    these mass migration events.
        Mr. Curbelo. Thank you both. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Hunter. I thank the gentleman. We are going to keep
    going here. We had really great participation today. You get
    more and more popular the more you come back, people start to
    like you. We will have full subcommittee here in a couple of
    years.
        Let me ask you about the NSC [National Security Cutter]
    really quick. You have a gap. You have a gap between now--
    between this year and 2018 where you're not working on
    anything. Well, you are working on the OPC design stuff but you
    have a gap. There are some folks in this Congress and in this
    Senate that want to fill that gap for you with an extra NSC.
    What do you feel about that? And then if you would, not just
    say how do you feel about it, how would it--how would it affect
    drug interdiction ops; in SOUTHCOM, what would it do for you;
    could you use it? Could SOUTHCOM use it? I mean, you might have
    to take off your Coast Guard hat and put on your SOUTHCOM hat,
    and SOUTHCOM probably wants that ship.
        Admiral Schultz. Sir----
        Mr. Hunter. But the Coast Guard may not.
        Admiral Schultz [continuing]. All day. Any ship, Coast
    Guard ship, Navy ship, is value add for the equation.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. Got that one.
        Admiral Michel. Easy for him to say. He doesn't have to pay
    the bills.
        But, no, the NSC is an incredible ship, sir. It is the most
    capable ship the Coast Guard has ever had. We are ecstatic with
    the NSC. And I just want to go on the record. Same time, it is
    not within our program of record, and we designed our program
    of record to be affordable and best meet our needs, and that
    ninth NSC is not a part of that.
        And we cannot allow that to interfere with our other
    programs because, for example, on the OPC, that is the
    workhorse of the fleet, much cheaper ship to operate, plus it
    is smaller and can get into some of the dock spaces and things
    that we have. The NSC is just a much bigger ship, and that is
    why it was not a part of the program of record. Not because it
    is a great ship, but it is not within our affordability
    characteristics.
        And, obviously, if someone were to give one of those to
    us--and I hope it would not interfere with the other things
    that we need in the system--then your Coast Guard stands ready
    to use that ship, sir.
        Mr. Hunter. If you get a ship like that, do you actually
    see the needle move, depending on how much you interdict based
    off of a ship like that that has as much capability as it has?
        Admiral Michel. Sir, that is the best ship available. I
    won't use the word ``Cadillac,'' sir, because I know you called
    me on that last time. But the NSC has the best sensor
    capabilities, the best command-and-control suite, operates the
    best helicopters, and is the best that we have in the fleet. It
    has got the endurance. It has got the speed. If you were to
    design a ship to work in this mission set, it would be the NSC.
        So it is the best that we can possibly bring to the fight,
    but it is also expensive. And its magnitude is more expensive
    than the OPC, which won't have as many capabilities but
    hopefully will have more of them.
        That kind of goes to Ms. Frankel's question of a balance
    between quality and quantity at a certain level, and we tried
    to do that in our program of record in addition to making sure
    the program is affordable.
        Mr. Hunter. The Coast Guard has built the Navy's littoral
    combat ship for them. And we are all very thankful. When we
    copy that and take it from you to give to the Navy, I think
    they will be appreciative.
        Admiral Michel. I wish they would send me a thank-you note,
    sir.
        Mr. Hunter. I want to get back if we could just really
    quick to when we were talking about levels of capability and
    your internal performance targets in the very beginning, right.
    Can you go through how you set those, just, you know, from the
    ground up for me?
        Admiral Michel. Well, the Office of the National Drug
    Control Policy sets what the national goal is, and it is----
        Mr. Hunter. Forty percent?
        Admiral Michel. Well, it is 36 percent in 2015, 40 percent
    in 2016, and that is along the formulas we describe, their sort
    of known interdiction versus the known flow, and there are
    formulas that underlie each one. So they sent----
        Mr. Hunter. Wait, let me ask, do they tie that to your
    capability, or do they just come up with that based on there is
    going to be more drugs coming across so we are going to up you
    4 percent as our target or up the entire thing 4 percent?
        Admiral Michel. No, sir. It was actually a result of a
    study done a number of years ago that actually brought in some
    economists and some very smart people and came to the
    conclusion that if you could interdict 40 percent of the
    cocaine flow--and they were looking at the cocaine trade--that
    you could actually force the traffickers to change their
    business model in a radical method. And there is actually an
    intellectual basis for why that 40 percent was set that way.
        Then it was negotiated amongst the interagency partners as
    to what were achievable goals for each year in order to get to
    that 40 percent. And there were studies done specifically on
    what it would take for the maritime interdiction forces to get
    to that 40 percent. And the study, my recollection, and I
    looked at the study when I was in JIATF South is that they
    figured that we would need about 16 ships in order to do the 40
    percent, at the time that study was done. Now, this was done a
    number of years ago.
        Now, some things have changed. The ships have gotten
    better. The technology has gotten better. The intelligence
    capabilities have gotten better. So 16 ships is probably an
    overstatement, in my opinion, up to this point, but even now,
    we are not fielding anything even approaching 16 ships in order
    to get down there at the 40 percent that need to be done. So
    there is analysis behind all that. And it is also run through
    an interagency negotiation process based on historical data.
    And that is where you come up with the Coast Guard's
    contribution.
        And when you look at that historical data for our
    contribution of the removal, it converts directly into our
    resource commitments to the fight and what we think we can
    provide to the fight and what type of capabilities we can
    provide to the fight. Again, there is pretty good historical
    data that over a number of years, that for each capital ship
    that is put downrange by the U.S.--and also some of our
    foreign, the high-end foreign partners--1 year of ship effort
    is about 20 metric tons removed. So you can kind of do the math
    from there.
        Now, part of it is beyond our control, you know, how much
    the traffickers plant, how much they move that year, what their
    production estimates, how much they decide to send to the U.S.
    and how much they decide to send to other global markets. So it
    is a difficult problem set, and recognize, the adversary does
    everything possible to keep all this from us. I mean, they want
    this all to remain in the dark. So it is based on our best
    estimates.
        Mr. Hunter. So your numbers going down from 18.5 percent to
    13.8 percent over 5 years, that is based on what you had to do
    the job with. Is that how it goes?
        Admiral Michel. That is based on the Coast Guard
    commitment, yes, sir. That is what we sign up for in order to--
    our portion of the national goal for the removal rate in the
    Western Hemisphere Transit Zone and then that converts into the
    number of assets we can put into the fight, which varies.
    Sometimes our assets get pulled off in different directions.
    Sometimes we can do more. Sometimes we can do less.
        Mr. Hunter. So what made it drop from 18 percent to 13
    percent?
        Admiral Michel. Ship effort. It is pretty simple math from
    a Coast Guard perspective, sir. It is just--it is the number of
    ships and capable ships that are brought into the fight.
        Mr. Hunter. Let me ask you a question that I am just
    curious about: Has the Pacific shift for the Navy to Asia had
    any play at all in anything that happens in your AO [area of
    operation]?
        Admiral Michel. I will let Admiral Schultz jump in here,
    but just from a Coast Guard perspective, our admiral, Admiral
    Zukunft, talks specifically about this. And he understands the
    geostrategic perspective and understands the Navy gets pulled
    in a lot of different directions, and that is specifically why
    he committed additional Coast Guard resources to the Western
    Hemisphere Transit Zone. He said: This is an area where I can
    provide unique capability and be complementary to the other
    geopolitical moves that the combatant commanders are putting in
    place.
        Mr. Hunter. So just, if I could dovetail with that too,
    then does the Coast Guard see a place for itself in the
    Pacific, in the South China Sea, as opposed to the Navy?
    Because our fellow peer nation in that area uses their Coast
    Guard for that exact thing.
        Admiral Michel. I get asked that question all the time,
    sir. Unfortunately, with every single combatant commander,
    there is more demand out there and more relevance for the Coast
    Guard than there is Coast Guard. And our Commandant has been
    specifically asked to provide resources to not only PACOM
    [Pacific Command] but all the other combatant commanders. And
    right now his best judgment is our Coast Guard resources are
    going to be put in the Western Hemisphere Transit Zone because
    this is an area of regional stability and national security
    where the Coast Guard can provide unique benefit to the Nation.
        And that is his judgment. But it is a risk calculation, no
    question about it. The Coast Guard is increasingly relevant in
    the area, and when you see the bumping and all the other things
    going on, they are Coast Guard boats and typically not gray
    hulls doing that stuff, sir.
        Mr. Hunter. Admiral Schultz.
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, the only thing I would add to
    that, you know, the pivot to the Pacific obviously is the
    demand signal there. I think there is also sort of the perfect
    storm of the decommission of the fast frigates from a budgetary
    standpoint. The Perry-class frigates, the last one is on patrol
    today. Once that ship finishes up her current JIATF patrol, we
    won't see any frigates here for the foreseeable future.
        The LCSs, littoral combat ships, which have been renamed
    the frigates, will probably not come to the SOUTHCOM AOR for 3
    to 5 years here, given that pivot to the Pacific and the rate
    of recapitalization.
        Mr. Hunter. With that, the ranking member has no more
    questions. I have no more questions, unless you have any
    closing comments you would like to give.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Hunter. Oh, I am sorry. Go ahead. Gentleman from
    Louisiana.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        Admiral Schultz, you just talked about the decommissioning
    of the frigates, and as I recall, I believe you have three that
    are being decommissioned now that does affect your area of
    operation. I am just continuing this theme. You talked earlier
    about the inability to meet the Office of National Drug Control
    Policy's target of 40 percent. You are losing frigates. You are
    not budgeting for new capabilities. Your AC&I [acquisition,
    construction, and improvements] account is going down not up.
    Can you comment on the conditions on the ground and how it
    affects your mission?
        Admiral Schultz. Well, I would say from the SOUTHCOM
    commander's perspective, you know, capacity is the spigot, you
    know. We still operate with that 16 number that Admiral Michel
    talked about, three large cutters, which would be, you know,
    your National Security Cutter, your former High Endurance
    Cutters or maybe a cruiser, destroyer from the Navy. And 13,
    those would be your to be built OPCs, currently the Medium
    Endurance Cutters; those were the Perry-class frigates.
        So, at the end of the day, it is about capacity from a
    SOUTHCOM perspective. And, you know, that ship with a
    helicopter, with the ability to launch a small boat, the
    ability to move around agilely within the AOR, which translates
    to a Coast Guard cutter, a Navy ship, some of our high-end
    partners, you know, you associate a number about 20 million--or
    20 metric tons, as Admiral Michel talked about. It is a math
    equation.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. I certainly don't want to get
    anybody in trouble here, but is there a way that you can
    carefully answer the question about, you have got a major loss
    of connectivity here. Again, heaping missions upon you, setting
    targets that I am confident if you were properly capitalized,
    you could achieve, yet they aren't providing the resources for
    you to actually do that. Where do you see the lack of
    connectivity here?
        Admiral Schultz. Well, I think, sir, the lack of
    connectivity is clearly budgetarily related. I think where we
    focus our efforts at Southern Command, I think where the Coast
    Guard does is, you know, how do you work as smart as possible
    within the workspace you have while you wait for the
    recapitalization of new ships?
        You know, we look at a resource like the Joint STARS, which
    flies maritime patrol capability. One Joint STARS flight
    equates to about 10 P-3 flights. It can surveil that much ocean
    on one mission here. We will fly that sometimes in conjunction
    with a B-52 or another type of bomber. Sometimes they will fly
    solely. We could fly a Joint STAR on the Caribbean base, and
    they could actually see traffic in the eastern Pacific.
        So there's the capacity piece on the surface side, which I
    talked about. There's other ways to, you know, stay in the game
    and work smarter with what you have here and pray for better
    days for more ships to come to the future. I would tell you,
    there is no bigger advocate to endorse the Coast Guard's
    recapitalization needs because of the challenges we have. And,
    again, it is transnational organized crime.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Sure.
        Admiral Schultz. We can take the discussion down to just
    drugs, but it is about regional stability. And the Coast Guard
    presence down there, the Navy ships with LEDETs [law
    enforcement detachments], they are all about, you know,
    bringing some sanity to that challenge there.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. So you said it is Admiral Michel's
    fault?
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, you said that, not me. I may
    need to go back and work for the Coast Guard.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. No, Admiral, look, I just want to
    be clear. Every hearing that we have, I think that a number of
    us are going to continue to pound that theme. There is a lack
    of connectivity here. You are being tasked with missions--we
    described you as a Swiss Army knife at the HASC hearing in
    regard to all the missions that are being heaped upon you. You
    are not being capitalized. There is a loss of connectivity
    between the work that you are being tasked with and the
    resources of the capitalization that you are being given.
        You have got a great workforce. The men and women of the
    Coast Guard--and I will put my oil spill comments aside for
    just a minute--are some great people that work incredibly hard.
    And I am confident, if given the proper resources, they could
    hit the targets that you put in place.
        I just want to make sure that you are continuing to beat
    the drum up your chain of command. We obviously are continuing
    to do the same thing. I am looking forward to the
    appropriations bill when it comes to the floor because I think
    we have got some priorities that need to be addressed.
        Let me ask you one last question. The chairman and
    Congressman Sanford both addressed the issue of when you have
    open lanes, you can send anything through them, whether it is
    aliens, whether it is drugs, whether it is a terrorist or
    weapons or what have you. I assume you would agree with that?
        Admiral Michel. Absolutely, sir. Just take a look at that
    picture of that self-propelled semisubmersible. My guess is
    that probably has a carrying capacity of maybe 5 to 7 metric
    tons of anything that you want, and it can approach the United
    States almost undetectable. Most of those SPSSs--now, they are
    kind of in version four of those things--3,500-, 4,000-mile
    range, you know, the fact that we have sort of through our
    consumption patterns allowed the creation of really a bad guy
    battle lab for the development of these dark highly mobile
    asymmetric maritime targets should concern everybody.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. And do you often see comingled
    loads, meaning drugs and aliens together and things like that?
        Admiral Michel. Actually, rarely. We do see comingled drug
    loads. So we just had a load of heroin and cocaine. But,
    interestingly, typically, you will either get a drug boat or
    you will get a migrant boat.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. OK.
        Admiral Schultz. And, Congressman, one thing the DEA has
    said publicly, I think it is 27 of 54 known terrorist
    organizations have proven links through drug trafficking. So
    there is clearly that nexus of, you know, transnational
    organized crime, illicit drug trafficking, and the potential
    for more nefarious activities.
        Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Sir. Thank you all very much.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Hunter. Thank you.
        One last question here. Marijuana, so say that you
    legalized weed throughout the entire country, right. Would that
    have any impact whatsoever on what you are doing?
        Admiral Michel. It is hard to say under what circumstance
    they would be legalized. As long as the traffickers can make a
    profit, they are going to be there. I mean, this goes to Mr.
    Sanford's question. You know, if they can undercut the
    marijuana market by growing marijuana overseas and putting it
    in the United States, even under a legalization scheme where
    you pay more, my guess is they would probably do it. I mean,
    that is--traffickers are going to make money.
        Mr. Hunter. Well, what would it do? Because you interdict
    more cocaine than anything else, right? But that is also what
    you are trying to interdict more of, correct?
        Admiral Michel. Absolutely. Cocaine really is the money
    product. And a lot of the problems in Central America, it is
    not because of marijuana that is being dragged across there.
    Most of the marijuana is being made in the U.S. or Mexico or
    somewhere like that. It is because of the cocaine trade that
    exists here, and it is so insidious because it is a very high-
    value, very small product.
        You have got to smuggle a lot of marijuana to make the same
    amount in cocaine, and that makes it more vulnerable, makes it
    more vulnerable to border tactics, like fences, makes it more
    vulnerable in the panga arena--I know that you are aware of--in
    San Diego and things. But the cocaine is incredibly dangerous.
    And once it gets past the JIATF forces and the Coast Guard
    forces down there, it is basically done. You are not going to
    get it.
        When I was JIATF South Director, the average cocaine
    seizure, which was pretty rare on the Southwest border, was 4
    to 7 kilos. A major seizure was 40 kilos. That one
    semisubmersible that I showed you there, 3,000 kilos. And you
    got that on the water before it got into Mexico and corrupted
    that government official, killed that kid in the drive-by
    shooting, plus you have got witnesses and evidence that can
    actually get you to the kingpins, so the head of the network
    that set all that stuff in motion. So it is the beauty of
    maritime interdiction. And so traffickers will make money if
    there is money to be made, sir.
        Admiral Schultz. Congressman, I think when we had the
    conversation about the violence, the judges, you know, I think
    for my boss, General Kelly, when he is down there talking to
    the CHODs [chiefs of defense], the ministers of defense, the
    MODs, I think there is a certain level of credibility here, you
    know, when they look at him and say: Well, General, your
    country is legalizing marijuana. You know, how committed are
    you to this fight here? You know, we have got our frontline men
    and women, whether that is law enforcement folks, whether that
    is their military because they have to bring their military to
    establish some security, it creates a bit of a credibility gap
    that the U.S. Government is truly committed to the fight.
        Mr. Hunter. Last question I have. Have you seen full
    submersibles now? Because I think I was watching something, it
    was either ``Vice'' on HBO or some documentary, where they had
    the full submersibles.
        Admiral Michel. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, I toured a
    fully submersible vessel that was seized by the Colombian Navy,
    with some help from the United States, at its construction site
    in Bahia Malaga, Colombia. I have toured that vessel. That
    vessel is capable of going from Colombia to Los Angeles
    unrefueled in a snorkeling state.
        We also seized a semisubmersible in San Lorenzo, Ecuador,
    in 2010. That is a fully submersible craft that can operate
    under the water. I can talk to you more offline about the
    operating characteristics, but that can carry 7 to 10 metric
    tons of anything that you want basically undetected from
    Ecuador to Los Angeles.
        Mr. Hunter. OK. So let's step away from SOUTHCOM totally. I
    am just curious, when does the Coast Guard realize that you
    got--you will have multinational, you know, terrorist
    organizations mixed with really easy to make full submersibles,
    where you can drop off anybody and anything, when do those two
    things come together for you?
        Admiral Michel. Well, I will let Admiral Schultz talk a
    little bit more about the terrorist connections, but the FARC
    [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], for example, which is
    declared a terrorist organization, is a drug-trafficking
    organization, and they are the ones who financed the
    semisubmersible construction, a large number of those things.
    So you already have that convergence, sir. It is already there.
        Mr. Hunter. But the FARC likes to have power and make
    money, right. They don't necessarily want to kill a million
    Americans so they can go see their God, right? That is the
    difference between radical Islam that I am talking about and
    bad crime organizations. Or, I mean, to a certain extent, I
    think I am correct there.
        Admiral Michel. I am not willing to put my trust in the
    FARC, sir.
        Mr. Hunter. OK.
        Admiral Schultz. And I think Congressman, you know, when
    you look at that convergence, I think if you look to Latin
    America, you know, within South America, you have upwards of
    75, 80 cultural centers, Iranian cultural centers. I think you
    have a Lebanese Hezbollah center of gravity there where I think
    there is indications that they are raising tens of thousands,
    you know, tens of millions of dollars there. You know, is it
    just fundraising and money that goes back to Libya? You know,
    do they have other activities afoot? You know, do we have any
    connection to IJO type activities?
        You know, I think, we watch that. And one of our challenges
    at SOUTHCOM is we get a fairly small percentage of the overall
    DOD ISR. So our challenge is, we don't know what we don't know.
    But with what we have, we try to, you know, stay aware of the
    transnational organized crime, but we are also paying attention
    to, you know, what threats on the counterterrorism front are
    potentially, you know, to our southern flank there.
        Mr. Hunter. Would it be fair to say that you would be the
    first ones to know if some folks out of the Middle East started
    using these tactics?
        Admiral Michel. I think that that is fair to say, sir. The
    enterprise that we have arrayed here before you really is the
    early warning sensor for the entire sort of southern approaches
    to the United States. We are it.
        Mr. Hunter. Thank you very much. This is probably one of
    the most informative, interesting topics in hearings that we
    have had.
        So thank you both, gentlemen. Appreciate it.
        And, with that, we are adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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