[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14] [House] [Pages 19960-19961] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]COAST GUARD READINESS The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Quinn). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address this body on the issue of military readiness. Yesterday, the Committee on Armed Services held a lengthy hearing regarding the state of our Nation's military. During that hearing, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Service Chiefs of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines offered frank testimony regarding the ability of our Nation to meet the security challenges facing us today. As I participated in yesterday's hearing, I could not help but think that an important part of our military was not being heard: The United States Coast Guard. While some might not realize it, the United States Coast Guard is our Nation's fifth military service. In one form or another, the Coast Guard has served our country alongside her sister services in peace and war since 1790. As a recent Presidentially approved study on the roles and missions of the Coast Guard certified, the Coast Guard's special capabilities are as well suited to the national defense mission of the 21st century as they were in 1790. Whether it is drug interdiction or illegal immigrants along our Nation's shores or serving with our naval forces in the Balkans and the gulf, the Coast Guard is a vital part of our overall national security strategy. Unfortunately, with that responsibility has also come many of the same readiness difficulties facing the other branches of the military. They are facing challenges in recruiting and retaining personnel, in keeping up with rising operation and maintenance costs caused by aging equipment and by performing dramatically increased missions with greater decreased manpower. A USA Today article published last May highlighted many of these problems facing the Coast Guard, and I will be providing a copy of the article, Mr. Speaker, for the Record. The writer of this article identified several of the concerns when indicating that despite soaring operational commitments, the Coast Guard, which has 35,000 active duty service members, is the same size as it was in 1967. Enlisted experience has declined from 8.8 years in 1995 to 7.9 years today, and is expected to drop to 7.1 years in the year 2003. The percentages of experienced pilots who leave every year has doubled since 1995, soaring from 20 percent to 40 percent. I further quote the article: ``The Coast Guard has only half of the certified surfmen it needs to operate rescue boats in the most dangerous conditions.'' The author went on to say that equipment is also a problem. ``On any given day, just 60 percent of the HC-130 fleet is fit for duty. Some have been turned into `hangar queens,' cannibalized for spare parts to keep other aircraft flying. The Coast Guard's major cutters are an average of more than 30 years old. Many smaller boats date to the Vietnam War. Such a creaky fleet is no match for drug smugglers.'' From these anecdotes alone it is easy to see the challenges facing the Coast Guard are not minor. The men and women of our fifth armed services are some of the best, the brightest, and the most dedicated military personnel in the world. They serve our Nation with pride, and we owe it to them to ensure that they are properly resourced to perform their missions. Mr. Speaker, when this Congress and the American people debate the issue of military readiness, it is imperative that the Coast Guard be included as part of the debate. That debate is important to ensuring that the Coast Guard will always be able to live up to its motto, Semper Paratus, always ready. Mr. Speaker, I submit herewith for the Record the news article referred to above: [From USA Today, May 16, 2000] Readiness Problems Plague Coast Guard (By Andrea Stone) Washington--For 210 years, the Coast Guard has lived its motto, Semper Paratus. Always ready. Yet there are mounting questions today about whether that still holds true. When President Clinton speaks to Coast Guard Academy graduates in New London, Conn., Wednesday, he will face members of a military service whose national security role has expanded in the last three decades even as its ranks have shrunk to 1967 proportions. At a time when drugs, terrorism, pollution and illegal migration pose a bigger threat than foreign armies, the Coast Guard is the federal agency in charge of monitoring them all. And it must do so without skimping on its No. 1 priority: saving lives. Last year, the Coast Guard answered 39,000 calls for help and saved 3,800 people. [[Page 19961]] Yet with an enlisted force that is younger and less experienced every year and a fleet that is older than 38 of 41 navies of similar size and mission, there is evidence that its core mission is being compromised: A shortage of serviceable HC-130 search planes may have contributed to the death last fall of a boater who called for help during a storm off the California coast. Four people drowned in 1997 near Charleston, S.C., during a storm after an inexperienced watchstander failed to pick up the word ``Mayday!'' on a radio distress call. The National Transportation Safety Board later cited ``substandard performance'' by the service. That same year, three Coast Guard crewmembers died when their boat capsized during a rescue attempt off the coast of Washington. An internal report blamed a lack of training and experience, noting that many crews are ``unqualified to fill the billets to which they have been assigned.'' ``They're reaching the edge of their capabilities,'' says Mortimer Downey, deputy secretary of Transportation, which oversees the Coast Guard. ``We're seeing less than optimum performance.'' In what was called a ``cultural shift'' signaling that crews would no longer try to do more with less, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James Loy ordered in March an unprecedented 10% cut in non-emergency operations. ``The strains caused by having tired people run old equipment beyond human and mechanical limits (degrades) our readiness,'' he said recently. ``Coasties'' will still answer every call for help. But safety inspections and patrols to catch drug smugglers, illegal migrants and foreign vessels illegally fishing in U.S. waters have been scaled back. The Coast Guard commander on Nantucket Island, Mass., has stopped operations for eight months though crews will still respond to search-and-rescue emergencies and oil spills. He said his crews need the time to repair their boats and train. ``The reduction in Coast Guard presence on the high seas will undoubtedly mean more illegal drugs will not (sic) stopped, more illegal migrants will reach our shores, and more foreign fishing vessels will harvest our marine resources,'' retired vice admiral Howard Thorsen wrote in May's issue of Proceedings. Since 1976, when Congress expanded the coastal limit from 12 miles to 200 miles, the Coast Guard has enforced the law in the United States' exclusive economic zone--at 3.4 million square miles the world's largest. During that same period, the service was given the jobs of protecting the marine environment, stopping illegal migrants and interdicting drug smugglers. The last two decades have also seen safety-related duties expand as the number of recreational boats and passenger cruise ships has skyrocketed. Yet the Coast Guard, which has 35,000 active-duty service members, is the same size as in 1967. It joined the other military services in a post-Cold War downsizing that saw 5,000 people leave in the 1990s. And now, like those services, it is struggling to cope with high turnover and tough recruiting in a red-hot economy: Enlisted experience has declined from 8.8 years in 1995 to 7.9 years today and is expected to drop to 7.1 years in 2003. The percentage of experienced pilots who leave every year has doubled since 1995, soaring from 20% to 40%. More than a quarter of enlisted cruise ship and charter boat safety inspectors have not attended entry-level marine safety courses. A third of lieutenant commander safety billets are filled with junior lieutenants. The Coast Guard has half the certified surfmen it needs to operate rescue boats in the most dangerous conditions. Aging equipment adds to problems. On any given day, just 60% of the HC-130 fleet is fit for duty. Some have been turned into ``hangar queens,'' cannibalized for spare parts to keep other aircraft flying. The Coast Guard's major cutters are an average of more than 30 years old. Many smaller boats also date to the Vietnam War. Such a creaky fleet is no match for drug smugglers. Thsi year, at least 400 souped-up speedboats carrying tons of illegal drugs from Colombia will cut through the Caribbean at up to 50 knots per hour. The fastest cutters reach 30 knots. The result is that nine of 10 smugglers get away. In December, a government task force recognized the problems and endorsed replacing the entire fleet with electronically linked high-tech cutters, small boats, fixed- wing aircraft, helicopters and satellites. The so-called Deepwater project, which has bipartisan support, would cost at least $500 million a year for the next 20 years. By Pentagon standards, the project is modest. But then again, the Coast Guard's $4.1 billion budget is tiny compared with the Pentagon's nearly $300 billion budget. ____________________