[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 121 (Thursday, September 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11035-S11036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to talk for a few 
moments about the Transportation appropriations bill we just passed and 
about one major component of that bill, and that is the U.S. Coast 
Guard.
  I rise this afternoon to make one point very clear. The U.S. Coast 
Guard needs our help and needs our support. The future of the Coast 
Guard depends on a continued congressional commitment to provide 
adequate resources to the Coast Guard to carry out its very important 
mission.
  Now, Congress--only in the last few years, with the leadership of a 
number of my colleagues--has begun to devote resources toward 
rebuilding the readiness of the Coast Guard. But we have to understand 
that this is a continuous process. These investments we have made have 
come at a time when we have seen the missions of this important agency 
increase and expand.
  Let me pause to congratulate Senators Shelby, Lautenberg, and the 
rest of the committee. They have been very supportive of the Coast 
Guard and have worked very hard to come up with the very scarce dollars 
that are needed for the Coast Guard. I appreciate their work. I 
understand very well that they know and understand the challenges the 
Coast Guard faces. They have supported investments in the Coast Guard 
and understand the important role it plays in fighting drug 
trafficking.
  I also know that in crafting the Transportation appropriations bill, 
my colleagues were faced with very difficult budget constraints. It is 
essential, however, that our overall investment in the Coast Guard 
keeps pace with the demands we are now placing on the Coast Guard and 
that we build on the recent successes we have seen in regard to the 
Coast Guard. We simply, as a Congress and as a Nation, in very tough 
and difficult budget times, must make funding for the Coast Guard a top 
priority.
  It is obvious why a Senator from Ohio would have an interest in the 
Coast Guard. In my home State of Ohio, the Ninth Coast Guard District 
performs many vital functions critical to human safety and economic 
development. With more than 2.3 million of America's 11.5 million 
recreational boaters residing in the Great Lakes region, the Ninth 
Coast Guard District search and rescue units handle close to 7,500 
cases annually, saving hundreds and hundreds of lives.
  Further, to facilitate commerce on the Great Lakes during the winter 
months, Coast Guard cutters work closely with the Canadian Coast Guard 
to clear the way for approximately $62 million worth of commercial 
cargo annually. This Ninth District also maintains more than 3,300 
buoys, navigational lights, and fixed aids throughout this critical 
shipping region.
  In addition to this role of the Coast Guard in my State of Ohio, it 
plays a significant role in the international drug fight. This may not 
be what people have historically thought about regarding the Coast 
Guard, but let me tell you, based on my own experience in going out 
with the Coast Guard and seeing what they do, if we give them the 
money, if we give them the resources, they are not only capable but 
they are willing and eager to go out and fight our antidrug battle for 
us.
  To quantify it, because of the Coast Guard, each year close to $3 
billion worth of drugs never reach our neighborhoods, never reach our 
schools, and never reach our children. They are stopped before they get 
there, and they are stopped by our Coast Guard.
  I have spoken on the Senate floor on several occasions in the past 
about U.S. counternarcotics policy. I have spoken about the Coast 
Guard's ability to enforce that policy. As I have said before, I 
believe we need a balanced program to attack the drug problem on all 
fronts. We need to invest in domestic reduction and law enforcement 
programs. But we also need to invest in international programs to 
increase interdiction and reduce production of illegal narcotics, and 
we need to do our best to stop drugs from ever reaching our shores.
  A balanced program means international drug interdiction. It means 
domestic law enforcement. It also means prevention, education, and 
treatment. We have to do all of these, and we have to do all of them 
all the time.
  Sadly, though, for the last 7 years this administration has pursued 
an antidrug strategy that I believe is clearly out of balance--a 
strategy that has failed to reverse a dramatic rise in youth drug use 
and a strategy that has allowed drug trafficking organizations to 
become a dominant source of political instability in Latin America and 
countries to our south.
  Before the Clinton administration took office, almost a third of our 
entire antidrug Federal budget was committed to stopping drugs from 
ever getting into our borders--international drug interdiction and 
eradication. We invested in a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week antidrug 
operation in the Caribbean. It worked. Drug prices increased and drug 
consumption went down.
  But tragically this all changed in 1993 when the Clinton 
administration came into power and began to change things. Our 
counternarcotics budget dedicated to international eradication and 
interdiction efforts went from one-third of the total budget in the 
late 1980s and early 1990s to less than 14 percent by 1995. This change 
in policy meant significant cuts in the Coast Guard. In fact, Coast 
Guard funding for counternarcotics decreased from $443 million in 1992 
to $301 million in 1995, almost a one-third reduction. As a 
consequence, the number of ship days that were devoted to overall 
counterdrug activities declined from 4,872 in 1991 to 1,649 in 1994--a 
huge decrease.
  As a result, with the reduced Coast Guard presence, more and more 
drugs are making their way into our country through the Caribbean. That 
is the main reason why drugs are more affordable. It is also one of the 
reasons why youth drug use in this country is dramatically higher now 
than at the beginning of the Clinton administration.
  Last year, as I have shared with Members of the Senate before, I saw 
firsthand what the Coast Guard can do. I went with the Coast Guard to 
see the counterdrug operations off the coast of Haiti, off the coast of 
the Dominican Republic, and off the coast of Puerto Rico. These 
personal visits convinced me that the Coast Guard can do more if we 
simply provide the right levels of

[[Page S11036]]

material and manpower to fight drug trafficking. They are ready to do 
it. They just need the resources. These visits also convinced me that 
this Congress had to address the state of drug-fighting readiness in 
our country.
  Thanks to the majority leader, Senator Lott, thanks to the Senate 
Appropriations Committee, and thanks to my colleagues, Senator 
Coverdell, Senator Graham of Florida, Congressman McCollum, and Speaker 
Hastert, who all share my dedication to fighting drugs, we passed, last 
year, the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act. This act authorizes 
a $2.7 billion, 3-year investment to rebuild our drug-fighting 
capability outside our borders to stop drugs, quite frankly, where it 
is easiest to stop them--at the source and in transit.

  This new law that Congress passed is about reclaiming the Federal 
Government's sole responsibility to prevent drugs from ever reaching 
our borders. Last year, Congress made an $800 million downpayment for 
this initiative, including $375 million for the Coast Guard.
  Why is it significant? It is significant because international drug 
interdiction--stopping drugs at the border, stopping them on the high 
seas, stopping them at the source--is the sole responsibility of the 
Federal Government. It is not a shared responsibility with the States 
or the local communities. Every other facet of our antidrug effort--
whether it is treatment, prevention, education, or domestic law 
enforcement--are all shared responsibilities between us in Congress, 
the President, the Federal Government, and the local communities. But 
when we are talking about stopping drugs on the high seas, when we are 
talking about funding the Coast Guard, that is solely the 
responsibility of this body, the House, and the President of the United 
States.
  This year, thanks to this added investment that Congress made last 
year for the Coast Guard, we are seeing results.
  Just this week, the national media has focused, highlighted, and put 
considerable attention on the Coast Guard's successful use of force 
capability to disable the drug trade's ``go-fast'' boats. These are 
boats I have talked about before on the Senate floor. These ``go-fast'' 
boats are souped-up motorboats capable of outrunning most ships in the 
Coast Guard fleet. They now carry more than 85 percent of all maritime 
drug shipments--85 percent goes in these ``go-fast'' boats. These boats 
typically carry drug shipments from the northern coast of Colombia, for 
example, to the southern tip of Haiti, to the southern tip of that 
great island, Hispaniola. Drug traders use the boats along the coasts 
of the United States to pick up drugs dropped into the ocean by small 
aircraft.
  The Coast Guard traditionally has been cautious in using lethal 
airpower to stop these boats due to the high likelihood of casualties. 
But thanks to a combination of technology and funding from this 
Congress, the Coast Guard has now demonstrated success in being able to 
target precisely the engines of ``go-fast'' boats and forcibly disable 
them, thus allowing the capture of the perpetrators and the ceasing of 
the illicit cargo, all while minimizing the risk to human life. It is 
because of these and other operations that cocaine seizures are now at 
an all-time high of 53 tons, with a street value of $3.7 billion.
  We must continue to invest in Coast Guard readiness if we are to see 
this kind of success over the long run. It has been a challenge for 
Congress, given the fact the administration has not made readiness and 
well-being of the Coast Guard a national priority.
  The fact is, despite the recent successes, readiness remains a 
problem. According to Adm. James Loy, Commandant of the Coast Guard, 
the Coast Guard is being stretched very thin. Aircraft deployments have 
more than doubled, with helicopter deployments increasing by more than 
25 percent. These increases did not happen with extra manpower and 
resources. These increases were achieved by working existing crews 
harder. In some cases, crews were working continuous 72-hour shifts. 
The Pacific area alone increased its temporary duty travel by 70 
percent just to maintain the pace of routine operations.

  So what we are saying is that we are asking the Coast Guard to do 
more. We began to give them significant resources last year. They are 
doing more. They are having successes. But unless we continue to 
support the Coast Guard, unless we continue to give them the resources 
they need, they will not be able to do the job we are asking them to 
do. It is as simple as that.
  In placing these additional demands upon our service members, we have 
to worry about safety. I understand lost workdays and shore injuries 
are up 29 percent and aircraft ground mishaps are up almost 50 percent 
from previous years. This is something we need to be concerned about. 
We are talking about human lives. Further, downtime of air and marine 
craft is on the rise.
  The demands on the Coast Guard are simply not decreasing; they are 
increasing. They have to have our support. This is why I will continue 
to call for the strongest investment possible for our Coast Guard. I 
applaud my colleagues who worked with me, including the Senator from 
Georgia, Mr. Coverdell, and the Senator from Florida, Mr. Graham, who 
stepped up to the challenge to gain additional investments last year. 
They and others in the House and the Senate and our Appropriations 
Committee particularly in the Senate deserve a great deal of the credit 
for the recent successes we are seeing in drug interdiction. These 
successes simply would not have happened but for what Congress did last 
year.
  However, this is not a one-shot deal. This is not something we can do 
in 1 year and think it is done. We have to continue year after year. 
The additional 1999 funding is simply not the sole cure. It is just the 
downpayment.
  We must have a sustained, multiyear effort if we expect our Coast 
Guard to be able to meet daily challenges and if we expect them to 
provide the critical services the American people expect and demand. 
Unless we continue with the investments we began least year, we will be 
sending a signal to the drug lords that this is just a temporary, maybe 
even a headline-grabbing effort, a politically expedient exercise. In 
fact, the writing is on the wall. If we fail to maintain and build on 
our support for the Coast Guard, these drug dealers will not believe we 
are serious and the Coast Guard will not be able to continue the 
current level of counterdrug operations in the future.

  The bottom line is we need to continue more resources. I applaud the 
efforts of my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. I know they 
tried to allocate a more sizable portion of the budget. They were faced 
with daunting challenges. As a Congress and as a people we must do 
more. We have to. As further opportunities in this Congress present 
themselves, we must take those opportunities and try to provide 
additional funds. As I said, adequate funding for the Coast Guard 
should be a top national priority. So much hinges on it.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in sending a message to all of the 
hard-working men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard that we do not take 
them for granted. We will continue to make sure they have the tools 
necessary to accomplish the many demanding missions we ask of them on 
behalf of our country.

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