Coast Guard: Condition of Some Aids-to-Navigation and Domestic	 
Icebreaking Vessels Has Declined; Effect on Mission Performance  
Appears Mixed (22-SEP-06, GAO-06-979).				 
                                                                 
The marine transportation system is a critical part of the	 
nation's infrastructure. To facilitate the safety and efficiency 
of this system, the Coast Guard maintains aids-to-navigation	 
(ATON), such as buoys and beacons, and conducts domestic	 
icebreaking in the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway, and	 
northeast coast. To conduct these missions, the Coast Guard has a
fleet of more than 200 vessels, ranging from 225-foot seagoing	 
buoy tenders and 140-foot domestic icebreakers to 21-foot boats. 
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many of these 
assets took on additional responsibilities for security patrols  
and other homeland security duties. Although some assets have	 
been recently acquired, many others are reaching or have exceeded
their design service lives, raising concerns about how well and  
for how much longer these older assets may be able to carry out  
their missions. In response, GAO examined (1) recent trends in	 
the amount of time these assets have spent performing missions;  
(2) asset condition and its effect on mission performance; and	 
(3) the actions taken by the Coast Guard to continue to achieve  
the missions of these assets. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed 
Coast Guard documents, interviewed Coast Guard officials, and	 
made site visits to various locations around the country. In	 
commenting on a draft of this report, the Coast Guard provided	 
technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate.	 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-979 					        
    ACCNO:   A61324						        
  TITLE:     Coast Guard: Condition of Some Aids-to-Navigation and    
Domestic Icebreaking Vessels Has Declined; Effect on Mission	 
Performance Appears Mixed					 
     DATE:   09/22/2006 
  SUBJECT:   Assets						 
	     Coastal zone management				 
	     Cost analysis					 
	     Equipment maintenance				 
	     Equipment management				 
	     Homeland security					 
	     Maintenance costs					 
	     Navigation aids					 
	     Performance measures				 
	     Ships						 
	     Waterways						 
	     Icebreakers					 
	     Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Program		 

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GAO-06-979

     

     * Results in Brief
     * Background
          * Aids-to-Navigation Mission
          * Domestic Icebreaking Mission
     * Icebreaking and ATON Assets Show Significant Increases in Ti
          * Domestic Icebreakers Show the Largest Increase in Time Spent
          * Increase in Homeland Security Missions Is Less Extensive for
     * Available Evidence Indicates Condition of Assets Varies Grea
          * Current Condition Measure Is Limited and Does Not Show a Cle
          * Increasing Maintenance Costs Indicate Possible Condition Iss
          * Evidence Gathered from Interviews, Site Visits, and Other Re
          * Performance Indicators for Icebreaking and ATON Missions Sho
     * To Continue to Achieve the Missions of Its ATON and Domestic
          * Actions Have Been Taken to Manage Assets and Acquire Some Ne
               * Coast Guard Is Developing a More Robust Condition Measure
               * Coast Guard Is Implementing New Approaches to Manage ATON Bo
               * Coast Guard Is Developing a Tool to Better Prioritize Upgrad
               * Coast Guard Acquired Some New Assets
          * Additional Proposals to Rehabilitate or Replace Aging Assets
          * Study Identified Outsourcing Possibilities but May Face Disa
     * Concluding Observations
     * Agency Comments
     * Condition Measure for ATON and Domestic Icebreaking Cutters
     * Condition Measure for ATON Boats
     * Maintenance Trends
     * GAO Contact
     * Acknowledgments
     * GAO's Mission
     * Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony
          * Order by Mail or Phone
     * To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * Congressional Relations
     * Public Affairs

Report to the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Coast Guard, Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

September 2006

COAST GUARD

Condition of Some Aids-to-Navigation and Domestic Icebreaking Vessels Has
Declined; Effect on Mission Performance Appears Mixed

GAO-06-979

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3
Background 6
Icebreaking and ATON Assets Show Significant Increases in Time Spent on
Homeland Security Missions since 2001 11
Available Evidence Indicates Condition of Assets Varies Greatly and Mixed
Impact on Mission Performance 17
To Continue to Achieve the Missions of Its ATON and Domestic Icebreaking
Assets, the Coast Guard Has Taken Actions, Made Proposals, and Studied
Outsourcing Possibilities 28
Concluding Observations 37
Agency Comments 39
Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 40
Appendix II Mission Resource Hours of ATON and Domestic Icebreaking
Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 to 2005 42
Appendix III Condition Measure of ATON and Domestic Icebreaking Assets,
Fiscal Years 2000 to 2005 48
Appendix IV Maintenance Trends of ATON Cutter and Domestic Icebreaking
Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 to 2005 51
Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 53
Related GAO Products 54

Tables

Table 1: Homeland Security and Non-Homeland Security Programs by Mission
Area 6
Table 2: Aids-to-Navigation Assets 9
Table 3: Domestic Icebreaking Assets 11
Table 4: Comparison of Features of the 87-foot Patrol Boats and Domestic
Icebreakers 15
Table 5: Condition of Domestic Icebreakers and ATON Cutters as Measured by
Coast Guard's Standard of 72 Percent or More of Time Free of Major
Casualties, Fiscal Years 2000 through 2004 18
Table 6: Availability of Navigational Aids, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005
27
Table 7: Approaches to Replace or Rehabilitate ATON and Domestic
Icebreaking Assets under the Integrated ATON Platform Modernization
Project 34
Table 8: Resource Hour Usage and Percent, by Asset Type and Mission
Program, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005 42
Table 9: Percent of Time Free of Major Casualties for ATON and Domestic
Icebreaking Cutters, Fiscal Years 2000 through 2004 48
Table 10: Condition of ATON Boats as Evidenced by POTF and Internal Coast
Guard Assessment 50
Table 11: Maintenance Costs for ATON Cutters and Domestic Icebreakers,
Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005 51

Figures

Figure 1: Examples of a Buoy and a Fixed Aid-to-Navigation 8
Figure 2: Resource Hours for Domestic Icebreakers, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005 13
Figure 3: Resource Hours for ATON Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005
16
Figure 4: Domestic Icebreaking Maintenance Cost Trends, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005 21
Figure 5: ATON Cutter Maintenance Cost Trends, Fiscal Years 2001 through
2005 22
Figure 6: Antiquated Circuit Card Rack, Which Serves as Part of the Main
Propulsion Control System, on the 140-foot Icebreaking Tug 23
Figure 7: Average Number of Collisions, Allisions, and Groundings, Fiscal
Years 2001 through 2005 26
Figure 8: Chain-in Haul Winch 32

Abbreviations

AOPS Abstract of Operations ATON Aids-to-Navigation CAMS Capital Asset
Management Strategy DOD Department of Defense ELC Engineering Logistic
Center OMB Office of Management and Budget POTF Percent of Time Free of
major casualties PWCS Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security SSMEB ship
structure and machinery evaluation boards

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United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

September 22, 2006 September 22, 2006

The Honorable Olympia Snowe Chair The Honorable Maria Cantwell Ranking
Minority Member Subcommittee on Fisheries and Coast Guard, Committee on
Commerce, Science and Transportation United States Senate The Honorable
Olympia Snowe Chair The Honorable Maria Cantwell Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Fisheries and Coast Guard, Committee on Commerce, Science
and Transportation United States Senate

The marine transportation system, which allows for the transportation of
people and goods on the water, is a vast and critical part of the nation's
infrastructure. The system includes coastal ports and shipping channels;
25,000 miles of navigable inland and coastal channels and waterways like
the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Columbia and Snake rivers; and shipping on
the Great Lakes. Ninety-five percent of the United States' overseas trade
tonnage moves by water, and the cargo moving through the U.S. marine
transportation system contributes hundreds of billions of dollars to the
U.S. gross domestic product. This system also enables the swift
mobilization and supply of America's military as well as providing
recreational value to millions of boaters, fishermen, and cruise
passengers. The marine transportation system, which allows for the
transportation of people and goods on the water, is a vast and critical
part of the nation's infrastructure. The system includes coastal ports and
shipping channels; 25,000 miles of navigable inland and coastal channels
and waterways like the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Columbia and Snake
rivers; and shipping on the Great Lakes. Ninety-five percent of the United
States' overseas trade tonnage moves by water, and the cargo moving
through the U.S. marine transportation system contributes hundreds of
billions of dollars to the U.S. gross domestic product. This system also
enables the swift mobilization and supply of America's military as well as
providing recreational value to millions of boaters, fishermen, and cruise
passengers.

The Coast Guard is responsible for, among other things, providing a safe,
efficient, and navigable waterway system, and it carries out this role
through its aids-to-navigation (ATON) and domestic icebreaking missions.
In its ATON mission, the Coast Guard establishes and maintains over 53,000
navigational aids, such as buoys and beacons, to assist mariners and
prevent disasters, collisions, or wrecks. To carry out this mission, the
Coast Guard uses a diverse fleet of more than 200 vessels ranging from
225-foot buoy tenders to 21-foot boats that can be transported on trailers
by truck. In its domestic icebreaking mission, the Coast Guard breaks ice
in the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the northeast U.S.
coast.1 This activity is intended to facilitate navigation for commerce,
conduct search and rescue missions, and prevent flooding. To carry out
this The Coast Guard is responsible for, among other things, providing a
safe, efficient, and navigable waterway system, and it carries out this
role through its aids-to-navigation (ATON) and domestic icebreaking
missions. In its ATON mission, the Coast Guard establishes and maintains
over 53,000 navigational aids, such as buoys and beacons, to assist
mariners and prevent disasters, collisions, or wrecks. To carry out this
mission, the Coast Guard uses a diverse fleet of more than 200 vessels
ranging from 225-foot buoy tenders to 21-foot boats that can be
transported on trailers by truck. In its domestic icebreaking mission, the
Coast Guard breaks ice in the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and
the northeast U.S. coast.12 This activity is intended to facilitate
navigation for commerce, conduct search and rescue missions, and prevent
flooding. To carry out this mission, the Coast Guard largely relies on 11
65-foot and 9 140-foot icebreaking cutters.

1 The Coast Guard is also responsible for operating and maintaining the
nation's fleet of polar icebreakers. We did not examine those polar
icebreaking assets as part of this review.

While some of these vessels have come on line in the past few years, many
are old and are reaching or have exceeded their designed service lives.
Their age has raised concerns within the Coast Guard as to how well and
for how much longer they will be able to carry out their missions. In
addition, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many ATON and
icebreaking vessels took on additional responsibilities for security
patrols and other homeland security activities. In this context, this
report examines (1) the recent trends in the amount of time ATON and
domestic icebreaking assets have spent performing various missions and the
impact of these trends on their primary missions; (2) the condition of the
ATON and domestic icebreaking assets and the impact of their condition on
performing their primary missions; and (3) the actions the Coast Guard has
taken to continue to achieve the missions of its ATON and domestic
icebreaking assets.

To address the first two objectives, we analyzed a variety of Coast Guard
data and records, focusing on fiscal years 2001 through 2005. We also made
site visits to assets located on the West and East Coasts, Gulf Coast,
Great Lakes, and inland rivers and met with the assets' crews to obtain
their views on the condition of their assets. These assets were selected
to provide diversity in terms of type, age of asset, and geographic
location. To address the third objective, we met with Coast Guard
officials at headquarters to discuss recent acquisitions and specific
management actions they have taken or are in the process of taking. We
also obtained and reviewed information and documents on the Coast Guard's
plans to rehabilitate or replace the assets or study outsourcing to carry
out missions. More details on our scope and methodology can be found in
appendix I of this report. We conducted our work between July 2005 and
August 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.

2 The Coast Guard defines a cutter as any Coast Guard vessel 65 feet in
length or greater, having adequate accommodations for crew to live on
board. Boats are defined as those vessels under 65 feet in length that
usually operate near shore and on inland waterways.

                                Results in Brief

Many of the Coast Guard's ATON vessels and domestic icebreakers saw a
sharp increase in use for homeland security missions after the attacks of
September 11, 2001, and while this trend has moderated somewhat, the use
of some assets in these missions continues well above pre-September 11
levels. This increase was most prominent for domestic icebreakers, which
continue to be used more for homeland security than for icebreaking.
Rather than being diverted from icebreaking activities when needed for
this mission, these icebreakers are basically being operated more
extensively at other times of the year when no icebreaking needs to be
done. In some cases, this more extensive use has caused some assets to be
operated at levels exceeding the recommended levels. Coast Guard officials
said that while these icebreakers are not specifically designed for
security patrols and other homeland security activities, they can perform
such duties acceptably, though at less than optimal levels. In contrast to
the icebreakers, most ATON vessels continue to be used primarily for ATON
activities, reflecting the greater year-round nature of ATON activity.
ATON vessels have devoted additional hours to other missions and this
reflects primarily an overall increase in the number of hours the ATON
vessels are used, especially the larger assets. Newer ATON vessels, which
generally have greater multiple-mission capabilities than older ATON
vessels, tend to be the ATON assets used the most for other missions.

Available evidence shows mixed trends with regard to both the condition of
these assets and the impact this condition has on the Coast Guard's
ability to perform its ATON and domestic icebreaking missions. The Coast
Guard's current measure of a vessel's condition-the percentage of time it
is free of major casualties-is inadequate to link the assets' condition to
any degradation in mission capabilities or performance and, therefore, may
reflect a more positive condition. The Coast Guard is currently working on
a new measure that should better link condition with mission degradation.
Other evidence, such as the amount of maintenance conducted and anecdotal
evidence we gathered, suggests that as these assets continue to age, their
condition is declining, though not precipitously. For example, according
to a program official who previously served as a commanding officer on an
icebreaker, stated that the decline in condition of those assets has not
been beyond what would be expected of assets 20 years or more of age. Our
site visits showed that, on these older assets, crew members are spending
increasing amounts of time and resources to troubleshoot and resolve
maintenance issues. They indicated that because the systems and parts are
outdated compared with the technology and equipment available today, it
can be challenging and time consuming to diagnose a maintenance issue and
find parts or determine what corrective action to take. For example, the
propulsion control system on the 140-foot icebreaking tugs uses circuit
cards that are no longer manufactured and have been superseded by computer
control systems. While some assets are being operated more extensively
than in the past to meet additional responsibilities, particularly
homeland security, Coast Guard officials said that overages can have an
impact on some assets, especially those with more complex systems and
subsystems. The officials said that exceeding planned usage limits may
leave less time to maintain these systems. They said that the
deterioration of an asset and its systems from usage consistently above
the limits would be reflected in periodic engineering assessments of the
assets. Against this backdrop, performance indicators for the two missions
show mixed results. A milder winter in 2005 may have contributed to the
Coast Guard's ability to meet its primary domestic icebreaking performance
target, which aims for limiting the number of days critical waterways are
closed due to ice to 2 days during average winters. For the ATON mission,
the main performance measure (the number of collisions, allisions, and
groundings) has been declining for the past 5 years, indicating continual
improvement, while a secondary measure (the percentage of time an
aid-to-navigation system is performing) has been declining over the same
period-a negative trend.3 In previous work, we found that many other
factors, such as severity of weather, also affected outcome on performance
measures.

To continue to achieve the missions of its ATON and domestic icebreaking
assets, the Coast Guard has taken a number of actions to develop program
management tools or acquire new assets, made proposals to address aging
assets, and conducted a study of what makes the best business case for
outsourcing:

           o  Actions taken or underway include developing a better measure
           for linking an asset's condition and its ability to carry out
           missions, a revised maintenance approach for newer assets, and a
           centralized system for tracking the condition and maintenance of
           smaller ATON boats. In addition, to better link asset conditions
           and funding decisions, the Coast Guard has developed a
           benefit-cost analysis tool to analyze the trade-offs involved in
           upgrading assets or continuing to maintain them, thereby helping
           the Coast Guard decide on the combinations of projects that will
           provide the most capability for the dollars invested. The Coast
           Guard has also acquired some newer assets: in 2004, it acquired
           the last of 30 new buoy tenders to replace older coastal and
           seagoing buoy tenders and in 2005, and it acquired a new
           icebreaker for the Great Lakes. These acquisitions have brought
           improved features to the fleet, such as computerized systems for
           positioning and propulsion control, enhanced multimission
           capabilities, and improved equipment for servicing navigation
           aids.

           o  Proposals made include steps to address the remaining aging
           assets, but these steps have not been implemented, largely because
           of other funding priorities. To determine whether to rehabilitate
           or replace assets, Coast Guard officials stated that they use a
           process that considers things such as the condition of the assets
           and trends in maintenance costs. In 2002, the Coast Guard proposed
           a project to systematically rehabilitate or replace its other
           aging ATON and domestic icebreaking assets. Requests for funding
           this project have been denied or deferred by the Department of
           Homeland Security or the Office of Management and Budget since
           fiscal year 2004, apparently due to competition for limited
           resources with other Coast Guard initiatives, such as the
           Deepwater project for replacing cutters and aircraft used far out
           at sea. As a result, parts of the project have been separated into
           smaller components with lower funding requirements. For example,
           in 2006, the Coast Guard began acquiring new trailerable ATON
           boats to replace 80 boats currently in use. Of these smaller
           components, only this new boat acquisition has received funding.

           o  The study conducted looked at what activities make the best
           business case for being outsourced to the private sector. While
           recognizing that, at the time of the study some ATON activities
           were being contracted to commercial sources on a limited basis,
           the study suggested that some asset classes related to the Coast
           Guard's ATON activities might be outsourced and merited further
           examination. However, according to the Coast Guard, potential
           disadvantages to outsourcing exist such as reduction of the Coast
           Guard's capacity to respond to hurricanes and other emergencies
           and disruption of the Coast Guard's personnel structure and
           ability to attract and retain personnel.

3 An allision is a collision between a vessel against a fixed or
stationary object.

We provided a draft copy of this report to the Department of Homeland
Security and the Coast Guard for review. The Coast Guard provided
technical comments, which have been incorporated where appropriate.

                                   Background

The US Coast Guard is a multimission, maritime military service within the
Department of Homeland Security. The Coast Guard has responsibilities that
fall under two broad missions-homeland security and non-homeland
security.4 (See table 1.)

Table 1: Homeland Security and Non-Homeland Security Programs by Mission
Area

Mission and program            Activities and functions of each program    
Homeland security missions     
Ports, waterways, and coastal  Conducting harbor patrols, vulnerability    
security                       assessments, intelligence gathering and     
                                  analysis, and other activities to prevent   
                                  terrorist attacks and minimize the damage   
                                  form attacks that occur.                    
Undocumented migrant           Deploying cutters and aircraft to reduce    
interdiction                   the flow of undocumented migrants entering  
                                  the United States by maritime routes.       
Defense readiness              Participating with the Department of        
                                  Defense (DOD) in global military            
                                  operations, deploying cutters and other     
                                  boats in and around harbors to protect DOD  
                                  force mobilization operations.              
Illegal drug interdiction      Deploying cutters and aircraft in high drug 
                                  trafficking areas and gathering             
                                  intelligence to reduce the flow of illegal  
                                  drugs through maritime transit routes.      
Other law enforcement (foreign Protecting US fishing grounds by ensuring   
fish enforcement)              that foreign fishermen do not illegally     
                                  harvest US fish stocks.                     
Non-homeland security missions 
Search and rescue              Operating multi-mission stations, and a     
                                  national distress and response              
                                  communication system, conducting search and 
                                  rescue operations for mariners in distress. 
Living marine resources        Enforcing domestic fishing laws and         
                                  regulations through inspections and fishery 
                                  patrols.                                    
Aids-to-navigation             Managing US waterways and providing a safe, 
                                  efficient and navigable marine              
                                  transportation system; maintaining the      
                                  extensive system of navigation aids;        
                                  monitoring marine traffic through vessel    
                                  traffic service centers.                    
Ice operations                 Conducting polar operations to facilitate   
                                  the movement of critical goods and          
                                  personnel in support of scientific and      
                                  national security activity; conducting      
                                  domestic icebreaking operations to          
                                  facilitate year-round commerce; conducting  
                                  international ice operations to track       
                                  icebergs below the 48th north latitude.     
Marine environmental           Preventing and responding to marine oil and 
protection                     chemical spills; preventing the illegal     
                                  dumping of plastics and garbage in US       
                                  waters; preventing biological invasions by  
                                  aquatic nuisance species.                   
Marine safety                  Setting standards and conducting vessel     
                                  inspections to better ensure the safety of  
                                  passengers and crew aboard commercial       
                                  vessels; partnering with states and boating 
                                  safety organizations to reduce recreational 
                                  boating deaths.                             

Source: Coast Guard.

4 The Coast Guard's homeland security and non-homeland security missions
are delineated in section 888 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P. L.
107-296, 116 Stat. 2135, 2249 (2002)). Starting with the fiscal year 2007
budget, however, OMB has designated the Coast Guard's drug interdiction
and other law enforcement programs as non-homeland security missions for
budgetary purposes.

One of the Coast Guard's strategic goals is maritime mobility, that is, to
facilitate maritime commerce, eliminate interruptions and impediments to
the movement of goods and people, and maximize access to and enjoyment of
the water. The two non-homeland security missions through which the Coast
Guard achieves this goal are aids-to-navigation (ATON) and domestic
icebreaking, which is part of ice operations.

Aids-to-Navigation Mission

Through its ATON mission, the Coast Guard promotes safe waterways and an
efficient Marine Transportation System. The Coast Guard has statutory
responsibility to operate and maintain a system of maritime aids to
facilitate navigation and to prevent disasters, collisions, and wrecks.5
To fulfill this mission, the Coast Guard operates over 53,000 aids. These
aids-to-navigation are like road signs of the waterways and are placed
along coasts and navigable waters as guides to mark safe water and to
assist mariners in determining their position in relation to land and
hidden dangers. These aids consist of both floating aids, such as buoys,
and fixed aids, such as lights or signs mounted on pilings. See figure 1
for an example of a buoy and fixed aid-to-navigation.

5 The Coast Guard's statutory aids-to-navigation authorities include, for
example, 14 U.S.C. S: 2, and 14 U.S.C. S: 81.

Figure 1: Examples of a Buoy and a Fixed Aid-to-Navigation

The Coast Guard uses several types of vessels to place and service its
aids- to-navigation such as buoy tenders, construction tenders, and boats
that make up its ATON fleet. These vessels are used to perform both
periodic routine maintenance of aids and discrepancy response, when, for
example, a light is extinguished or a buoy is moved from its intended
location. The assets are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Aids-to-Navigation Assets

                           Number of                                 Asset    
Asset type                 assets Asset description             photograph 
225-foot seagoing buoy     16     The seagoing buoy tenders     
tenders                           service and maintain coastal  
                                     and offshore aids to          
                                     navigation in exposed         
                                     locations. They have a crew   
                                     size of 40 to 48, a maximum   
                                     speed of 15 knots and a range 
                                     of 6,000 nautical miles. They 
                                     have a lifting capacity of 20 
                                     tons and a cargo capacity of  
                                     75 tons. These tenders were   
                                     commissioned between 1996 and 
                                     2004.                         
175-foot coastal buoy      14     The coastal buoy tenders      
tenders                           service and maintain coastal  
                                     and offshore aids to          
                                     navigation. They have a       
                                     planned crew size of 19 to 26 
                                     and a maximum speed of 13     
                                     knots. They have a lifting    
                                     capacity of 10 tons and a     
                                     cargo capacity of 40 tons.    
                                     These tenders were            
                                     commissioned between 1997 and 
                                     2000.                         
160-foot/ 100-foot/        13     The inland construction       
75-foot inland                    tenders construct, maintain,  
construction tenders              and remove aids to navigation 
                                     along the Intra-coastal       
                                     waterway system. They have a  
                                     planned crew size of 13 to    
                                     14, a maximum speed of 9 to   
                                     11 knots, and a range of      
                                     1,300-5,350 nautical miles.   
                                     The 100-foot and 75-foot      
                                     tenders push construction     
                                     barges. These tenders were    
                                     commissioned between 1944 and 
                                     1976.                         
75-foot/ 65-foot river     18     The river tenders push        
buoy tenders                      90-foot to 130-foot barges    
                                     and maintain short-range aids 
                                     to navigation in the          
                                     Mississippi River, its        
                                     tributaries, and other rivers 
                                     that flow into the Gulf of    
                                     Mexico. They have a crew size 
                                     of 12 to 13, a maximum speed  
                                     of 9 to 11 knots, and an      
                                     operating range of 3,000 to   
                                     3,500 nautical miles. These   
                                     tenders were commissioned     
                                     between 1960 and 1990.        
100-foot/ 65-foot          15     The inland buoy tenders       
inland buoy tenders               service and maintain aids to  
                                     navigation in remote          
                                     waterways far from readily    
                                     accessible logistics support. 
                                     They have a planned crew size 
                                     of 8 to 18, a maximum speed   
                                     of 9 to 10 knots, and an      
                                     operating range of 600-1,200  
                                     nautical miles. The 100-foot  
                                     cutters have a lifting        
                                     capacity of 5 tons and a      
                                     cargo capacity of 56,000 lbs. 
                                     The 65-foot cutter has a      
                                     lifting capacity of 2 tons    
                                     and a cargo capacity of       
                                     13,500 lbs. These tenders     
                                     were commissioned between     
                                     1944 and 1963.                
72-foot cable laying       11     The cable boat maintains      
boat                              shore power to offshore aids  
                                     to navigation that cannot be  
                                     powered by solar means. It    
                                     has a planned crew size of 4, 
                                     a maximum speed of 11 knots,  
                                     and an operating range of up  
                                     to 225 nautical miles. It has 
                                     a cargo capacity of 20,000    
                                     lbs. This boat was            
                                     commissioned in 1953.         
64-foot aids-              13     The 64-foot boats conduct     
to-navigation boats               aids to navigation work on    
                                     the inland rivers. They have  
                                     a planned crew size of four,  
                                     a maximum speed of 9 knots,   
                                     an operating range of 500     
                                     nautical miles, and a lifting 
                                     capacity of 4,500lbs. The     
                                     cargo capacity of these       
                                     vessels is 30,000 lbs. These  
                                     vessels were built in 1995.   
63-foot aids-              11     The 63-foot boat is designed  
to-navigation boats               to work small floating aids   
                                     to navigation. It has a       
                                     planned crew size of six, a   
                                     maximum speed of 15 knots,    
                                     and an operating range of 300 
                                     nautical miles. It also has a 
                                     lifting capacity of 14,000    
                                     lbs and a cargo capacity of   
                                     16,000 lbs. This asset was    
                                     constructed in 1975.          
                           Number of                                 Asset    
Asset type                 assets Asset description             photograph 
55-foot aids-              20     The 55-foot boats service     
to-navigation boats               small buoys and service fixed 
                                     structures. They have a       
                                     planned crew size of 4, a     
                                     maximum speed of 21.5 knots,  
                                     and an operating range of 175 
                                     nautical miles. They have a   
                                     lifting capacity of           
                                     2,000/3,000 lbs and a cargo   
                                     capacity of 8,000 lbs. These  
                                     vessels were constructed from 
                                     1977 to 1988.                 
49-foot buoy stern         26     The 49-foot boats service     
loading boats                     buoys on the intra-coastal    
                                     waterway and in coastal       
                                     areas. They have a planned    
                                     crew size of four, a maximum  
                                     speed of 10 knots, an         
                                     operating range of 300        
                                     nautical miles, and a lifting 
                                     capacity of 4,500 lbs. The    
                                     last boat in this fleet       
                                     completed construction in     
                                     2001.                         
45-foot buoy boats         12     The 45-foot boats service     
                                     buoys have a planned crew     
                                     size of 4, maximum speed of   
                                     8.5 knots, and an operating   
                                     range of 550 nautical miles.  
                                     They have a lifting capacity  
                                     of 4,000 lbs and a cargo      
                                     capacity of 20,800lbs. These  
                                     assets have been in service   
                                     since the 1950s.              
21-foot trailerable        80     The 21-foot boats are used to 
aids-to-navigation boat           provide discrepancy response  
                                     in semi-exposed and protected 
                                     waters and to service many of 
                                     the aids located in shallow   
                                     water. They have a planned    
                                     crew size of 3 and a maximum  
                                     speed of 20 knots. They have  
                                     a lifting capacity of 250 lbs 
                                     and a cargo capacity of 3,500 
                                     lbs. These boats were built   
                                     from 1980 to 1992, have an    
                                     average age of 10-22 years,   
                                     and have exceeded their       
                                     original estimated service    
                                     life of 5 to 7 years.         

Source: Developed by GAO from Coast Guard data. Photographs of the 21-foot
trailerable aids to navigation boat and inland construction tender are by
GAO. All other photographs are courtesy of the Coast Guard.

Domestic Icebreaking Mission

Domestic icebreaking is a key component of the Coast Guard's ice
operations mission, which facilitates the safe and efficient navigation on
lakes, rivers, channels, and harbors during the winter season. The Coast
Guard has statutory icebreaking responsibilities that are additionally
addressed by an executive order that directs the Coast Guard to break ice
in channels and harbors in order to keep them open to navigation.6 Like
plowing snow-covered roads, the Coast Guard keeps areas of water open as
much as is reasonably possible for commercial traffic in winter. It also
performs icebreaking for search and rescue and prevention of flooding by
ice. To conduct this mission, the Coast Guard uses assets that are
specially designed with strengthened hulls. The key icebreaker types the
Coast Guard uses are shown in table 3.

6 14 U.S.C. S: 2; Exec. Order No. 7521, 1 Fed. Reg. 2184 (1936).

Table 3: Domestic Icebreaking Assets

                    Number of                                        Asset    
Asset type        assets   Asset description                    photograph 
140-foot            19     The icebreaking tugs are specially   
icebreaking tugs           configured for breaking ice on the   
                              Great Lakes, rivers, and coastal     
                              waters, and support aids to          
                              navigation. They have a crew size of 
                              17 to 27, a maximum speed of 14.7    
                              knots and an operating range of      
                              4,000 nautical miles. Two of these   
                              assets are augmented by a 120-foot   
                              ATON barge and perform mostly ATON   
                              mission activities. These vessels    
                              were commissioned between 1979 and   
                              1988.                                
65-foot small       11     The small harbor tugs perform        
harbor tugs                shallow water icebreaking services   
                              and maintain short-range ATON in     
                              rivers and near-shore areas. They    
                              also perform port security and       
                              search and rescue missions. They     
                              have a planned crew size of 6, a     
                              maximum speed of 10 knots, and an    
                              operating range of 850 nautical      
                              miles. These vessels were built      
                              between 1962 and 1967.               

Source: Developed by GAO from Coast Guard data. Photographs are courtesy
of the Coast Guard.

Note: In June 2006, the Coast Guard commissioned a new 240-foot Great
Lakes icebreaker that has multi-mission capabilities and will perform both
domestic icebreaking and aid-to-navigation as its primary mission
activities. It replaces a 290-foot icebreaker that was commissioned in
1944. Because the new Great Lakes icebreaker has not yet completed ice
trials, we did not include it in this table.

The Coast Guard classifies its vessel assets, such as those used in the
ATON and domestic icebreaking missions, as cutters (assets 65 feet long or
longer with adequate accommodations for crew to live on board) or boats
(assets less than 65 feet in length that usually operate near shore and on
inland waterways). For purposes of this report, the three main asset
groups are ATON cutters, ATON boats, and domestic icebreakers.

Icebreaking and ATON Assets Show Significant Increases in Time Spent on Homeland
                          Security Missions since 2001

Since 2001, the Coast Guard's domestic icebreakers and ATON cutters have
experienced significant increases in the time spent conducting missions
related to homeland security. Most of this increase has come in the Ports,
Waterways and Coastal Security (PWCS) mission, which involves such
activities as conducting security patrols and escorting vessels. The
increase was greatest for domestic icebreakers, which continue to be used
more for homeland security missions than for icebreaking because of their
availability during months when no icebreaking is needed. By contrast,
ATON cutters and boats still spend most of their time on ATON-related
activities, reflecting the year-round nature of the ATON mission. Some
newer ATON cutters with greater multi-mission capabilities, however,
continue to have a more diverse workload. Coast Guard officials said
icebreakers and ATON vessels, while less than ideal for carrying out
security missions, can perform these missions adequately.

Domestic Icebreakers Show the Largest Increase in Time Spent on Homeland
Security Missions

During fiscal years 2001 through 2005, the domestic icebreakers divided
their time between several of the Coast Guard's 11 missions, but PWCS
activities accounted for roughly half of all resource hours during fiscal
years 2002 through 2005.7 PWCS activities grew quickly from 15 percent of
total resource hours in fiscal year 2001 to 53 percent in fiscal year
2002, and they have remained at 44 percent or more of total hours through
fiscal year 2005. At the same time, icebreaking hours began at 41 percent
in fiscal year 2001 and then dropped down to 13 percent in 2002, but ended
at 26 percent in fiscal year 2005. The vast majority of this increase in
PWCS has occurred in the New York City area with smaller increases in
other East Coast ports.8 As figure 2 shows, the increase came about
largely by adding to the total number of hours these assets were operated.
The total number of resource hours for these assets grew from about 12,000
hours in fiscal year 2002 to a high of about 20,000 the following year.

7 The Coast Guard maintains information, on a program-by-program basis,
about how resources (assets such as ships and boats) are used to conduct
its program missions. Each hour that these resources are used is called a
resource hour. Resource hours do not include things such as the time that
the resource stands idle or the time that is spent in maintaining it.
"Support" was also a mission identified by the Coast Guard; however,
because this mission accounted for time spent on non-mission activities
such as public affairs and training, we did not consider these hours
recorded as "Support" to be "resource hours."

8 In addition the Coast Guard also has several icebreakers stationed at
locations along the East Coast. Of the locations these icebreakers are
stationed, the demand for additional presence and patrols has been
greatest in New York City. Sector New York has a requirement of 116 hours
per day of PWCS patrols. Other sectors have little or no hours required.

Figure 2: Resource Hours for Domestic Icebreakers, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005

The increase in PWCS hours for domestic icebreakers mainly reflects their
availability during those months when no icebreaking needs to be done.
Icebreaking needs are typically greatest from December 15 to April 15.
Coast Guard officials said that because icebreakers do not have a primary
summertime mission, using them to conduct PWCS missions during slack
periods has not limited the Coast Guard's ability to conduct routine
icebreaking missions.9 Icebreaking hours, however, did see some marked
shifts during this period-most notably a decrease in fiscal year 2002
followed by a substantial increase in fiscal year 2003. The decrease in
2002 appears related to two main factors: a mild winter, during which the
Great Lakes region was virtually free of ice throughout December and most
of January, and a change in the way the Coast Guard accounted for its use
of icebreakers. The Coast Guard does not record resource hours under two
mission categories simultaneously, and prior to the attacks on September
11, 2001, resource hours used to break ice while escorting a vessel with
hazardous cargo would only have been recorded as ice operations. After the
attacks, these same hours could be logged either as PWCS or icebreaking at
the discretion of the vessel's commanding officer. The increase in ice
operations hours for fiscal year 2003 reflected an unusually severe winter
in the Great Lakes.

9 According to a Coast Guard official, maintenance on the icebreakers is
often done during the summer period and PWCS missions that occur during
this time can result in planned maintenance being rescheduled. Although
the assets have been ready to break ice when needed so far, the Coast
Guard official stated that depending on how much the maintenance is
delayed as well as whether there are any additional maintenance problems
discovered, the potential exists for the assets not being ready if
icebreaking is needed earlier than expected.

Increased workloads have placed some icebreakers above the maximum number
of recommended operating hours for the assets. The maximum recommended
operating level, called an "underway hours limit," reflects maximum use
established from planning documents, missions, and maintenance
requirements, and historic use. In particular, the 65-foot small harbor
tug fleet exceeded their underway hours limit from fiscal years 2001 to
2003 by increasingly more hours, starting with being 10 hours over the
underway limit in 2001 and progressing to nearly 2,000 hours over the
underway limit in 2003. In contrast, the 140-foot icebreaking tugs were
operated within their underway hours limit from 2001 to 2005.

Coast Guard officials said domestic icebreakers, while not their vessel of
choice for maritime security missions, can perform all PWCS missions
adequately except for shore side patrols.10 The Coast Guard's 87-foot
coastal patrol boats are the preferred assets for PWCS missions.
Commissioned since 1998, these boats can travel at up to 25 knots and have
a system that allows the crew to launch and recover small boats. 11
Relative to these vessels, domestic icebreakers show both advantages and
disadvantages (see table 4). Icebreakers are more capable of operating in
cold weather, and their substantial size provides a significant presence
on the waterways, but they are slower, less able to launch small boats,
and pose increased training challenges for training crews in law
enforcement.12

10 Shore-side patrols typically involve visiting a maritime facility and
providing a law enforcement presence on land. The patrols are typically
conducted by a Coast Guard shore unit.

11 A knot is equivalent to 1 nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.85
kilometers or 1.15 miles-per-hour.

Table 4: Comparison of Features of the 87-foot Patrol Boats and Domestic
Icebreakers

Feature                      Patrol boats        Domestic icebreakers
                                87-foot coastal 140-foot        65-foot small 
                                patrol boat     icebreaking tug harbor tug    
Maximum speed                25 knots        14.7 knots      10 knots      
Cold weather capability      Limited         Yes             Yes           
Date commissioned            1998-2006       1979-1988       1962-1967     
Requires additional training No              Yes             Yes           
of crew for maritime                                         
security missions                                            

Source: Coast Guard.

Increase in Homeland Security Missions Is Less Extensive for ATON Assets

ATON assets also experienced an increase in use for homeland security
missions after September 11, 2001, but to a much lesser degree than for
domestic icebreakers. Overall, ATON assets were used for several of the
Coast Guard's missions during fiscal years 2001 through 2005, but ATON
remained the primary mission, accounting for more than 85 percent of the
fleet's total resource hours for fiscal years 2001 to 2005. Time spent in
PWCS activities increased from 4 percent of total resource hours in fiscal
year 2001 to 10 percent in fiscal year 2002; since then, PWCS mission
hours have steadily decreased (see fig. 3). Overall, PWCS activities
accounted for 6 percent of resource hours during the period.

12 To qualify for these crews, team members and officers must attend
training in maritime law enforcement, where they are trained in the use of
weapons including firearms.

Figure 3: Resource Hours for ATON Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005

When resource hours are analyzed more closely by type of ATON asset, there
are significant differences in the amount of hours used for the PWCS
mission. The increase in PWCS resource hours came primarily from cutters
(vessels ranging in length from 65 to 225 feet). Overall, ATON activities
account for about 79 percent of total resource hours for the cutters,
compared with about 90 percent for ATON boats (vessels less 65 feet in
length). ATON boats were the only vessels that did not have as much of an
increase in PWCS resource hours immediately after the attacks on September
11, 2001, though their use in PWCS activities did rise in fiscal year
2003. Among the ATON cutters, the newer cutters have greater multiple
mission capabilities and consequently tend to be used more often in other
missions. For example, ATON cutters acquired between 1944 and 1976
performed an average of 4 of the Coast Guard's 11 missions during fiscal
years 2001 through 2005, while the 225-foot seagoing buoy tender, which
the Coast Guard completed the acquisition of in 2004, was used in all 11
of the Coast Guard's missions in fiscal years 2004 through 2005.

Available Evidence Indicates Condition of Assets Varies Greatly and Mixed Impact
                             on Mission Performance

The available evidence does not give a consistent picture of how usage
trends may be affecting the condition of these assets and, ultimately, the
Coast Guard's ability to meet performance goals for icebreaking and ATON
missions. We analyzed three types of evidence related to condition-the
Coast Guard's primary measure for reporting asset condition, overall
trends in maintenance expenditures on each type of asset, and a body of
anecdotal evidence gathered primarily through interviews with Coast Guard
personnel and site visits to various installations. The Coast Guard's
primary condition measure shows some assets meeting the operating standard
and others falling below it. However, the current measure for asset
condition is not clearly linked to mission performance, but the Coast
Guard is working on developing a measure that links the two. Trends in
maintenance costs and the anecdotal evidence we gathered tend to indicate
that asset conditions are declining, though not substantially beyond what
Coast Guard officials said they would expect for vessels of this age.
Performance indicators for the icebreaking and ATON missions likewise show
mixed results, with the Coast Guard meeting some performance goals and not
meeting others. In part, these mixed results can be explained by the many
other factors besides asset condition, such as the severity of weather in
any given year.

Current Condition Measure Is Limited and Does Not Show a Clear Pattern in Asset
Condition

For icebreaking and ATON cutter assets, the Coast Guard's key summary
measure of condition shows mixed results. This measure-percent of time
free (POTF)-of major casualties has been mixed. 13 The Coast Guard's
standard is 72 percent or better. Measured against this standard for
fiscal years 2000 through 2004, the various types of icebreakers and ATON
cutters vary considerably.14 As table 5 shows, some assets, such as the
65-foot small harbor icebreaking tugboat and the 65- and 75-foot river
buoy tenders met the standard nearly every year, while others such as the
140-foot icebreaking tugboat and the 75-foot, 100-foot, and 160-foot
inland construction tenders met it either not at all or only once during
the 5-year period. Fiscal year 2004 was the worst of the 5 years, with
only two of the eight types of cutters meeting the standard.

13 A major casualty is a deficiency in mission-essential equipment that
causes the major degradation of a primary mission or loss of at least one
primary mission.

14 The Coast Guard is in the process of developing a new condition metric
and did not have fiscal year 2005 data available. Consequently, our
analysis covers fiscal years 2000 through 2004.

Table 5: Condition of Domestic Icebreakers and ATON Cutters as Measured by
Coast Guard's Standard of 72 Percent or More of Time Free of Major
Casualties, Fiscal Years 2000 through 2004

Asset type                                  2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 
Domestic icebreakers                        
140-foot icebreaking tugs                                       
65-foot small harbor tugs                                       
ATON cutters                                
75-foot river buoy tenders                                      
65-foot river buoy tenders                                      
65/100-foot inland buoy tenders                                 
75/100/160-foot inland construction tenders                     
175-foot coastal buoy tenders                                   
225-foot seagoing buoy tenders                                  

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard data.

Legend = Met or exceeded 72-percent standard = Did not meet 72-percent
standard

The Coast Guard's condition measure for these assets, while instructive,
needs to be viewed with some caution. As we have reported in our analysis
of the condition of the Coast Guard's legacy deepwater assets, the measure
captures only major equipment casualties, which degrade mission
capabilities but does not capture minor equipment casualties that may also
degrade mission capabilities. 15 As such, this measure may underestimate
the decline in asset condition. The Coast Guard has acknowledged the
limitations of this measure and is working on a replacement for it, which
will better determine specific mission impacts.

The POTF condition measure applies to cutters; the Coast Guard only
recently started tracking POTF data for assessing condition trends on ATON
small boats. During the fiscal year 2000 through 2004 period we reviewed,
the Coast Guard did not have a centralized system for tracking the
condition of these boats. Its internal assessment of the condition of the
boats was based on two approaches, as follows:

15 GAO, Coast Guard: Progress Being Made on Addressing Deepwater Legacy
Asset Condition Issues and Program Management, but Acquisition Challenges
Remain, GAO-05-757 (Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2005). The Deepwater fleet
consists of 186 aircraft and 88 cutters of various sizes and capabilities,
which play a critical role in all Coast Guard homeland and non-homeland
security missions.

           o  For standard boats, which are purchased by Coast Guard
           headquarters and have similar capabilities and equipment for all
           boats of a particular type, the Coast Guard assessed condition by
           determining the boats' remaining service lives through a process
           referred to as ship structure and machinery evaluation boards
           (SSMEB). The SSMEB, which is conducted 10 years after a boat is
           commissioned and is repeated at 5-year intervals, applied to two
           of the six types of ATON boats we reviewed.

           o  For nonstandard boats, which are purchased by individual Coast
           Guard units for individual needs, the Coast Guard's assessment was
           based on anecdotal information from district boat managers,
           maintenance managers, annual boat inspection reports, and site
           visits. This approach was used on four of the six types of boats
           we reviewed.

Using these approaches, the Coast Guard characterized most of these asset
types as in fair to poor condition. By contrast, however, when the Coast
Guard assembled POTF data for a portion of these boats in fiscal year
2005, the data did not support this assessment. The boats analyzed had
average scores above the Coast Guard's goal of 72 percent. (App. III
provides further details on condition measures for each of the ATON and
domestic icebreaking assets.)

Increasing Maintenance Costs Indicate Possible Condition Issues

For our second measure-trends in maintenance expenditures-the picture with
regard to condition is more consistent than for our first measure:
maintenance expenditures for domestic icebreaking and ATON cutters are
increasing, even after taking inflation into account. We analyzed three
types of maintenance costs16:

           o  Scheduled maintenance costs, which are planned for in advance
           and include such things as repainting the vessel;

           o  Unscheduled maintenance costs, which are for unforeseen
           emergencies; and
           o  Engineering Logistic Center (ELC) costs, which include
           fleetwide projects that require engineering assistance (such as
           checking for watertight integrity) and therefore cannot be handled
           at the unit level. These projects, such as replacing a generator,
           help sustain capability but do not enhance it, according to Coast
           Guard officials.

16 We also examined a fourth category-deferred maintenance, which is the
amount of scheduled maintenance that must be postponed in order to pay for
unscheduled repairs. A previous GAO study found that a drop in this
account is not necessarily an indicator that the condition of the assets
are improving but rather a result of the Coast Guard having more money to
address the maintenance needs. Due to this limitation we did not include
our analysis of a sub-account within deferred maintenance which indicated
a declining trend. Data to conduct an analysis on ATON small boats are not
available.

While there are some asset-by-asset variations, total maintenance costs
for domestic icebreakers and ATON cutters increased during the period we
examined (fiscal years 2001 through 2005).17 As figure 4 shows, total
annual maintenance costs for domestic icebreakers nearly doubled, from
slightly more than $3 million to slightly more than $6 million. The
increase came primarily in two of the three categories in most
years-scheduled maintenance costs and ELC costs. Although maintenance
costs are also affected by the amount of funding available in any given
year, according to Coast Guard officials, maintenance managers have
discretion to move some funds to those assets most in need of maintenance
money. Coast Guard officials have also said that these costs are
indicative of condition issues. For example, an ELC official said that the
increase in ELC costs was related to condition because the money was used
for the overhaul of domestic icebreakers. In addition to the amount of
funding available in any given year, these maintenance costs can also be
impacted by a variety of other factors such as the pace of operations. For
example, maintenance costs can be expected to increase as the pace of
operations increases.

17 Given the limitations of the Coast Guard data, we could not analyze
maintenance costs for ATON small boats, and were unable to draw any
conclusions about the condition of the ATON boats based on their
maintenance costs. Starting in fiscal year 2003, the districts began
shifting responsibility of boat maintenance from the district level to a
centralized area level. Due to the segregated approach in which boat
maintenance was carried out previously, maintenance data for the period we
examined is inconsistent. Further complicating the analysis of this data
is the fact that it is not broken out by scheduled and unscheduled costs,
which would allow for identification of trends in unplanned maintenance
and better reflect issues with condition. Finally, the maintenance cost
figures reflect only half of the costs for standard boats, which is less
than 40 percent of the total boat fleet.

Figure 4: Domestic Icebreaking Maintenance Cost Trends, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005

Note: The figures presented above have been adjusted for inflation using
2005 dollars.

Total annual cost increases for ATON cutters showed a similar trend, more
than doubling from over $13 million to over $32 million during the 5-year
period (see fig. 5). For ATON cutters, cost increases were greatest in ELC
maintenance and unscheduled maintenance. As with icebreakers, Coast Guard
officials considered these expenditures to be related to asset condition.

Figure 5: ATON Cutter Maintenance Cost Trends, Fiscal Years 2001 through
2005

Note: The figures presented above have been adjusted for inflation using
2005 dollars.

Evidence Gathered from Interviews, Site Visits, and Other Records also Indicate
Condition Issues

Evidence we gathered during our discussions with maintenance personnel,
our visits to various Coast Guard installations, and our review of other
Coast Guard records also pointed to declining condition of a number of
these assets. However, according a program manager who previously served
as a commanding officer on an icebreaker, for some of the older assets,
the decline in condition of those assets has not been beyond what would be
expected of assets 20 years or more in age. During our interviews and site
visits, Coast Guard personnel reported to us that crew members have had to
spend increasingly more time and resources to troubleshoot and resolve
maintenance issues on older domestic icebreaking and ATON assets. They
indicated that because the systems and parts are outdated compared with
the technology and equipment available today, it can be challenging and
time consuming to diagnose a maintenance issue and find parts or determine
what corrective action to take. For example, the propulsion control system
on the 140-foot icebreaking tugs uses circuit cards that were
state-of-the-art when the tugs were commissioned in the late 1970s to
1980s but are no longer manufactured today and have been superseded by
computer control systems (see fig. 6). Coast Guard personnel said the lack
of a readily available supply of these parts has forced maintenance
personnel to order custom made parts or refurbish the faulty ones,
increasing the time and money it takes to address maintenance problems.
Finding knowledgeable individuals to identify problems with outdated
equipment is difficult, they said, which further complicates maintenance.
Crews of other assets we visited also confirmed the difficulty of
diagnosing problems and obtaining replacement parts for other critical
subsystems such as the main diesel engines.

Figure 6: Antiquated Circuit Card Rack, Which Serves as Part of the Main
Propulsion Control System, on the 140-foot Icebreaking Tug

Since at least 2002, the Coast Guard has been on record as saying these
assets are in decline. In a mission needs analysis issued that year, the
Coast Guard concluded that its domestic icebreaking and ATON assets were
affected in varying degrees with respect to safety, supportability,
environmental compliance, and habitability, and that addressing these
issues would require replacing or rehabilitating the assets. 18 The
analysis noted that the need to replace or rehabilitate inland buoy
tenders and 45-foot buoy boats had been identified as early as 1993 but
had not yet been addressed.19 It also noted that the 21-foot trailerable
aids-to-navigation boats and the 55-foot aids-to-navigation boats-most of
which have yet to be replaced-had been extended beyond their projected
service lives.

When we asked Coast Guard officials if current usage patterns were
precipitating the decline of these assets, they said that overages can
have an impact on some assets, especially those with more complex systems
and subsystems. The officials said that exceeding planned usage limits may
leave less time to maintain these systems. They said that the
deterioration of an asset and its systems from usage consistently above
the limits would be reflected in periodic engineering assessments, known
as SSMEBs, of the assets. In our site visits, we did learn of one example
in which increased use of assets for security-related purposes may be
affecting condition. The example involves the 140-foot icebreakers, which
currently are being used extensively for security-related activities when
they are not engaged in icebreaking activity. According to Coast Guard
personnel, these icebreakers were designed to operate at maximum power for
icebreaking; however, maritime security missions typically require several
hours of idling, which is detrimental to the engine. Extended periods of
idling, they said, causes oil discharge and sludge build up in the engine
and mufflers. Thus, running assets in ways for which they were not
designed could result in faster degradation of their condition.

18 Absent from the analysis were the newer 49-foot stern loading buoy
boats, and the 175-foot and 225-foot seagoing buoy cutters.

19This need was to be met by acquiring a new 49-foot buoy stern loading
boat, but the existing 45-foot buoy boat assets were continued in service
when the Coast Guard determined that the 49-foot boats could not support
the needs for all locations across the country.

Performance Indicators for Icebreaking and ATON Missions Show Mixed Results

Against this backdrop of condition indicators, the Coast Guard's measures
of performance for domestic icebreaking and ATON missions show mixed
results, with several indicators showing that mission performance has been
improving or largely unchanging, while at least one other indicator
indicates a decline.

           o  For domestic icebreaking, the Coast Guard's performance
           indicator is the number of days that ice leads to closures of
           waterways in the Great Lakes region-the region in which most
           domestic icebreaking activity occurs.20 The Coast Guard's
           performance goal is to have 2 or fewer closure days during average
           winters.21 During fiscal years 2001 through 2005 the Coast Guard
           met this goal every year but 1. The exception was fiscal year
           2004, when waterways were closed for 4 days. According to Coast
           Guard officials, however, vessel condition was not a factor in
           waterway closures; instead, they were related to an icebreaker's
           being diverted to free a stuck vessel and to a response to a
           commercial aircraft crash.

           o  For ATON, the Coast Guard's primary performance indicator is
           the number of collisions, allisions, and groundings. 22 Since
           these events can cause deaths and injuries, environmental and
           property damage, and lead to waterway closures that limit
           commercial and recreational activity, a decline in this measure is
           an improvement. During fiscal years 2001 through 2005, this
           measure declined-a positive development (see fig. 7).

20 In our recent review of the performance measures for non-homeland
security missions, we found that although the Coast Guard breaks ice in
many East Coast ports and waterways, according to Coast Guard officials,
the measure focuses on the Great Lakes region because it is a large
commerce hub where the icebreaking season tends to be longer and where ice
has a greater impact on maritime transportation. Coast Guard program
officials at agency headquarters said that they are in the early stages of
developing a new primary performance measure that will incorporate
domestic icebreaking activities in areas beyond the Great Lakes. For more
information, see GAO, Coast Guard: Non-Homeland Security Performance
Measures Are Generally Sound, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist,
GAO-06-816 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 16, 2006).

21 The Coast Guard has a goal of 8 or fewer days during severe winters.

22 The Coast Guard defines an "allision" as a vessel collision with a
fixed object.

Figure 7: Average Number of Collisions, Allisions, and Groundings, Fiscal
Years 2001 through 2005

           o  While the Coast Guard's primary ATON performance indicator was
           showing improvement, however, an important secondary measure was
           showing an adverse effect. This indicator, which measures the
           probability that an aid to navigation or a system of
           aids-to-navigation is performing its specified function at any
           randomly chosen time and is expressed as a percentage of total
           time, is the leading performance measure used in managing the ATON
           program, according to Coast Guard officials.23 This measure has
           steadily declined since fiscal year 2002 (see table 6), and since
           a smaller percentage means fewer aids are available, a decline in
           this measure is an adverse development. Coast Guard officials said
           some of this decline was attributable to the condition of ATON
           cutters and boats for servicing the navigational aids, but they
           were not able to estimate how much of the decline could be
           attributed to this cause.24

23 The Coast Guard's primary indicator-collisions, allisions, and
groundings-is the measure included in external performance reports, but it
reflects many factors outside the aids to navigation mission, such as
weather, dredging, and vessel equipment standards.

Table 6: Availability of Navigational Aids, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005

Fiscal year Percent of aids available 
2001                             98.3 
2002                             98.4 
2003                             98.2 
2004                             97.6 
2005                             97.3 

Source: Coast Guard.

Note: Coast Guard's goal is 99.7 percent of all aids to navigation
available.

In other work, we have noted that the Coast Guard's performance indicators
can be affected by multiple factors and that there are challenges to using
such measures in linking resources to results.25 The ability to meet
icebreaking goals, for example, can be affected by the severity of the
winter. In fact, when the Coast Guard met its goal for waterway closures
in fiscal year 2005, Coast Guard officials attributed the result in part
to less severe average ice conditions than in previous years. Similarly,
the ability to keep navigational aids in working order can be adversely
affected by such uncontrollable factors as the severity of a hurricane or
winter storm season.

The Coast Guard has launched a number of initiatives designed to address
challenges in linking resources to results of these missions.26 These
initiatives followed program assessments conducted by the Office of
Management and Budget, which completed an assessment of the ATON program
in 2002 and the domestic icebreaking program in 2004.27 For the ATON
program, the assessment determined that the program did not demonstrate
results and recommended that the program have specific long-term
performance goals that focus on outcomes. The assessment of the domestic
icebreaking program determined that the program was effective, but that
more ambitious performance targets needed to be set. In response to these
findings, the Coast Guard has worked to set long-term performance targets
and develop new measurement frameworks to align with OMB's
recommendations.

24 Coast Guard officials also said that, in some cases, the lack of
availability was related not to vessel's condition but to its use in other
missions. For example, seagoing and coastal buoy tenders may be called
upon to respond to unexpected events like hurricanes, precluding their use
in fixing navigational aids.

25 See, for example, GAO, Coast Guard: Relationship between Resources Used
and Results Achieved Needs to Be Clearer, GAO-04-432 (Washington, D.C.:
Mar. 22, 2004).

26 For more information on these initiatives, see GAO, Coast Guard:
Non-Homeland Security Performance Measures Are Generally Sound, but
Opportunities for Improvement Exist, GAO-06-816 (Washington, D.C.: Aug.
16, 2006).

To Continue to Achieve the Missions of Its ATON and Domestic Icebreaking Assets,
the Coast Guard Has Taken Actions, Made Proposals, and Studied Outsourcing
                                 Possibilities

The Coast Guard has considered or proposed a wide variety of actions to
continue to achieve the missions that its domestic icebreaking and ATON
assets perform and is moving ahead with several of them. Actions under way
include developing new ways to measure asset condition, manage boat and
cutter maintenance, and make choices about which maintenance projects to
conduct. The Coast Guard has also acquired some new buoy tenders and a new
icebreaker, though the bulk of its icebreaking and ATON fleet remains at
or beyond projected service lives. Coast Guard officials stated that to
determine whether and when to replace or rehabilitate aging assets,
factors such as the assets' condition and trends in maintenance costs,
among other things, are taken into account. Proposals to systematically
rehabilitate or replace these assets have been denied or deferred by DHS
or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), apparently due to
competition from initiatives such as the $24-billion Deepwater project for
replacing or renovating other Coast Guard vessels and aircraft. In
response, the Coast Guard has separated the proposals into smaller parts
and is trying to fund some projects from within the Coast Guard's budget.
Finally, the Coast Guard studied what mission activities make the best
business case for outsourcing of functions to the private sector, but
states that potential disadvantages to outsourcing exist such as loss of
capabilities and inability to retain personnel.

27 These assessments were done using OMB's Program Assessment Rating Tool
(PART), which is a diagnostic rating tool meant to provide a consistent
approach to evaluating federal programs as part of the executive budget
formulation process. It applies 25 questions to "programs" under four
broad topics: (1) program purpose and design; (2) strategic planning; (3)
program management; and (4) program results (i.e., whether a program is
meeting its long-term and annual goals) as well as additional questions
that are specific to one of seven mechanisms or approaches used to deliver
the program.

Actions Have Been Taken to Manage Assets and Acquire Some New Ones

Three main steps to manage assets are under way, and several acquisitions
have been completed in both the icebreaking and ATON fleets.

  Coast Guard Is Developing a More Robust Condition Measure

The Coast Guard is working on the development of a new measure to track an
asset's condition. As mentioned above, the Coast Guard's previous measure,
percent of time free of major casualties, did not capture the extent to
which equipment casualties degraded mission capabilities. Called "percent
of time fully mission capable," this new measure is intended to more
directly link a cutter's condition to its mission capability. Developed
after our examination of the condition of deepwater assets, this measure
will be used for ATON and domestic icebreaking assets as well.28 For the
new measure, the Coast Guard is developing codes that rank the degree of
importance of each piece of a cutter's equipment to each mission that the
cutter could perform. The Coast Guard plans to use these codes in casualty
reports, providing engineers and operators with information about the
impact of equipment casualties on each possible mission. This information
will then be used in calculating the condition measure for each cutter
class and mission. This information would allow Coast Guard officials to
determine, for example, the degree of icebreaking capability of its
domestic icebreaking fleet at any given time. Coast Guard officials said
they expect final approval of this measure this year.

  Coast Guard Is Implementing New Approaches to Manage ATON Boat and Cutter
  Maintenance

The Coast Guard is implementing a centralized boat maintenance initiative
to improve the management of its boat fleet, which includes many ATON
boats. In contrast to the previous approach in which local boat operators
managed boat maintenance and oversaw the spending of maintenance funds,
the new initiative places management of boat maintenance and expenditures
with naval engineers. According to the Coast Guard, the key advantages of
this initiative include standardized maintenance practices for the boats,
better oversight of maintenance funding, and enhanced tracking and
analysis of casualties. In addition, it should improve the tracking of the
condition of the Coast Guard's small boat fleet, which has lacked a
centralized tracking system. Known as Centralized Boat Maintenance
Management, this initiative is expected to be rolled out Coast Guard-wide
by fiscal year 2008 if adequate resources and personnel are available.

28 GAO-05-757 .

Since 2002, the Coast Guard has also been gradually implementing a
maintenance approach called "condition based maintenance" for select
subsystems and parts of its newer coastal and seagoing buoy tending
cutters.29 Under this approach, the condition of a part or subsystem, such
as the main diesel engine, is evaluated or assessed at regular intervals
to determine whether it needs to be replaced or have maintenance
performed. Parts or systems would be replaced or receive maintenance only
if their condition showed excessive wear or did not perform at an
acceptable level. Under the previous approach, maintenance occurred at
time-based intervals even if the part showed no excessive wear or
performed acceptably. The key advantage of the change, according to Coast
Guard officials, is reduced costs. For example, the Coast Guard estimated
that it reduced drydock costs related to maintaining newer coastal and
seagoing buoy tenders $2 million in fiscal year 2005. The Coast Guard is
considering expanding the use of this maintenance approach to other
subsystems of the newer buoy tending assets and the new Great Lakes
icebreaker commissioned in 2006.

  Coast Guard Is Developing a Tool to Better Prioritize Upgrades and Maximize
  Asset Capabilities

In 2002, we recommended that the Coast Guard develop a long-term strategy
to set and assess levels of mission performance.30 We found this was an
important step to take because it links investments to asset capabilities
and mission priorities so that the Coast Guard can better decide how
limited budget dollars should be spent. The Coast Guard has been working
to apply the principles behind such a strategy to (1) better prioritize
the projects needed to upgrade assets such as aging ATON and domestic
icebreakers and (2) obtain the greatest overall mix of capabilities for
its assets within its budget in order to maximize mission performance. The
tool it is developing is called the Capital Asset Management Strategy
(CAMS).

29 A form of this approach was first adopted by the Navy in the late 1970s
and most Coast Guard "condition based maintenance" capability is derived
from proven Navy programs. According to Coast Guard officials, the Coast
Guard is in the process of evaluating what other assets and systems for
which such a maintenance approach may be effective. They stated that this
approach is not a replacement for preventative maintenance work but is
intended to complement it.

30 GAO, Coast Guard: Comprehensive Blueprint Needed to Balance and Monitor
Resource Use and Measure Performance for All Missions, GAO-03-544T
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 12, 2003); and GAO, Coast Guard: Strategy Needed
for Setting and Monitoring Levels of Effort for All Missions, GAO-03-155
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 12, 2002).

CAMS is designed to analyze the capability trade-offs for upgrades and
maintenance projects across asset classes, allowing the Coast Guard to
determine which combination of projects will provide the most capability
for the dollars invested. These analyses take into account such factors as
asset condition, the asset's importance to specific missions, and the
relative importance of missions. The Coast Guard continues to refine CAMS
and expects to have it in full use beginning with the budget for fiscal
year 2009. The recommendations stemming from CAMS are intended to augment
the information currently provided to decision makers in the budget
development process.

  Coast Guard Acquired Some New Assets

Since the 1990s, the Coast Guard has been able to replace buoy tenders
with new assets that represent about 15 percent of its current ATON fleet.
From 1996 to 2004, the Coast Guard commissioned 14 new 175-foot coastal
buoy tenders and 16 new 225-foot seagoing buoy tenders to replace an aging
fleet of 11 coastal and 27 seagoing buoy tenders that were built between
1942 and 1971. The new buoy tenders have improved capabilities such as the
following:

           o  A computerized positioning system that automates the task of
           holding the vessel in place while working on a navigational aid.
           Previously, this task had to be done manually, requiring the crew
           to constantly monitor and maintain the vessel's position,
           sometimes for up to 10 hours at a time. The system relieves the
           crew of this task and reduces safety concerns associated with crew
           fatigue.

           o  Bow and stern thrusters to enhance the vessels' maneuverability
           and improve the crew's ability to maintain position.

           o  Hydraulic chain stoppers and winches to reduce the number of
           crew members required to do the work and enhance safety (see fig.
           8).

           o  Accommodations that allow for dual gender crews, increasing the
           Coast Guard's ability to allow women to serve on the vessels.

Figure 8: Chain-in Haul Winch

These and other features also allow the newer buoy tenders to carry out
other missions, according to a Coast Guard official involved in their
design and acquisition. Their size, stability, and maneuverability are
useful for such missions as search and rescue, homeland security, and law
enforcement, and they have specific capabilities for dealing with other
duties as skimming oil or mounting machine guns for security patrols. With
their sizeable fuel tanks and storage capacity, they can also serve as
logistics support platforms to restock vessels involved in drug
interdiction and other activities. For 7 weeks in 2005, for example, one
tender served as a supply platform for a Coast Guard vessel conducting
drug interdiction patrols. According to Coast Guard officials, this
enabled the patrol vessel to remain on patrol in the area for a longer
period of time than it would have otherwise with its limited fuel and
storage capacities.

Besides the buoy tenders, the Coast Guard commissioned a new 240-foot
multimission icebreaker in 2006 to replace a 62-year-old icebreaker and an
aging buoy tender on the Great Lakes. The new icebreaker has enhanced
icebreaking capabilities and the same ATON capabilities as the newer
seagoing buoy tenders, enabling it to work on navigational aids in ice
conditions as well as during other times of the year when no icebreaking
is needed.

Additional Proposals to Rehabilitate or Replace Aging Assets Remain Largely
Unfunded

Despite the new acquisitions, more than half of the assets in the domestic
icebreaking and ATON fleet have reached or are nearing the end of their
service lives. Coast Guard officials stated that they use a process that
considers information such as how close the assets are to the end of their
design life, the condition of the assets as determined by periodic
assessments, and trends in maintenance costs, among other things to
determine whether to rehabilitate or replace these aging assets. This
information is used to identify the asset types that are most in need of
replacement or major maintenance, and therefore should be given greater
consideration in maintenance planning and budgeting.

In 2002, the Coast Guard proposed options for systematically
rehabilitating or replacing 164 cutters and boats in these fleets.31
According to Coast Guard officials, these options were proposed after
determining that the age, condition, and cost of operating these assets
would diminish the capability of the Coast Guard to carry out ATON and
domestic icebreaking missions over time without rehabilitation or
replacement of some or all of the assets. In 2004, it completed a
preliminary analysis of four approaches, including the status quo-that is,
maintaining the existing fleet. This analysis provided an estimate of the
total life-cycle costs for each approach over a 33-year period from fiscal
year 2005 to fiscal year 2037.32 (See table 7 for a description of each
approach.) Estimated costs ranged as high as $8.5 billion; however, Coast
Guard officials emphasized that these estimates were preliminary and are
not reliable. As a result, we are not reporting these numbers in detail.

31 The scope of this proposal considered rehabilitating or replacing the
following asset types: 21-foot trailerable aids-to-navigation boats;
45-foot buoy boats; 55-foot aids-to-navigation boats; 63-foot
aids-to-navigation boat; 72-foot cable laying boat; 65-foot and 75-foot
river buoy tenders; 65-foot small harbor tugs; the 65-foot and 100-foot
inland tenders; the construction tenders (75-foot, 100-foot, and
160-foot); and the 140-foot icebreaking tugs.

Table 7: Approaches to Replace or Rehabilitate ATON and Domestic
Icebreaking Assets under the Integrated ATON Platform Modernization
Project

Status quo: The existing fleet of ATON and domestic icebreaking assets     
would receive maintenance as needed to maintain current operations.        
Rehabilitation: Nearly all existing assetsa would undergo major            
rehabilitation projects whose effect is expected to last 15 years for most 
vessels after which another major rehabilitation would be required.        
Replace: All existing assets would be replaced with a system of new        
standardized assets.                                                       
Rehabilitate/replace: Depending on the condition of certain asset types,   
the assets would be either replaced with new assets or rehabilitated.      

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard data.

aUnder this alternative, trailerable aids-to-navigation boats and the
45-foot buoy boats would be replaced.

No funds have been allocated to pursue this project further, apparently
due to competing funding requests for replacing or rehabilitating other
Coast Guard assets. According to a Coast Guard program official, although
resource proposals to carry out this project were made during the budget
planning processes for fiscal years 2004 through 2007, the requests were
either deferred or denied by DHS or the Office of Management and Budget.
Coast Guard officials involved in the program said they were not aware of
the exact reasons why the requests were terminated or deferred. The
officials said that the funding demands from other major Coast Guard
programs already underway (such as the Deepwater program for replacing or
rehabilitating aircraft and cutters with greater at-sea capability) that
likely had higher priority in the competition for limited resources
combined with the large scope and size of the proposed project, may have
prevented the project from being funded.

32 These life-cycle costs include costs associated with planning and
design, procurement, management and use, and disposal of the assets at the
end of their service lives. We did not assess the reasonableness of the
estimates provided in this analysis.

Without specific funding to move the project forward, the Coast Guard has
attempted to break the project into smaller components and pursue
potential funding from within the Coast Guard's budget, focusing on the
assets most in need of maintenance or replacement. In February 2006, the
Coast Guard began a project to replace its fleet of 80 trailerable
aids-to- navigation boats with new boats that have enhanced capabilities
to do ATON work as well as other missions.33 The enhanced capabilities
include equipment to lift navigational aids out of the water for service,
more deck space for working on these aids, an elevated work platform for
working on aids that are high in the water, and faster speeds to reduce
transit times. The Coast Guard intends for the new boats to be more
multimission capable. For example, their added speed and deck space will
help with search and rescue missions, and they will have gun mounts for
use in law enforcement or maritime security missions.

According to a Coast Guard official, this acquisition would cost
approximately $14.4 million if all 80 boats are purchased and would bring
on new boats over a 5-year period as funds allow.34 The Coast Guard
official responsible for the project said the Coast Guard intends to make
the purchases using a funding stream appropriated for the maintenance of
nonstandard boats that can be allocated to the boats with the most
pressing maintenance or recapitalization needs. Availability of these
funds, however, depends on the condition and maintenance needs of other
nonstandard boats; if this funding has to be applied to meet other needs,
such as unanticipated problems, it may not be available for purchasing
these boats.

Separate from this effort to acquire new trailerable boats, the Coast
Guard has made a request as part of the budget process to begin
rehabilitating aging river buoy and construction tenders. This project,
which will focus on rehabilitating the systems within the engine rooms of
the assets, is estimated to cost approximately $75 million. The Coast
Guard plans to include this project in future budget requests. Coast Guard
officials indicated that they were submitting this request because these
assets were determined to be in the worst condition.

33 These boats can be placed on trailers and transported on land by truck.

34 According to a Coast Guard official, the Coast Guard is purchasing
these boats under a 5-year "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity"
contract that allows the Coast Guard to order as many boats from the
vendor at any given time at a cost of $180,000 per boat. The official
stated that this price includes delivery, spare parts, trailers, and crew
training and that the Coast Guard's obligation under the contract was to
purchase at least one boat, which it has already met. Currently, the Coast
Guard has 24 more boats on order and expects to order a total of 80 over
the course of the contract to replace its existing fleet. According to a
Coast Guard official, the Coast Guard hopes to have all new boats in place
by 2011. This official also stated that under this contract, other DHS
agencies also have the option of purchasing up to 20 boats of similar
design.

Study Identified Outsourcing Possibilities but May Face Disadvantages to
Implement

In 2004, the Coast Guard examined possibilities for outsourcing missions
in response to an OMB assessment of the ATON program.35 As a result of
that assessment, Coast Guard and OMB officials agreed to study which ATON
activities make the best business case for being performed by contractors
outside of the Coast Guard with minimal impact on the Coast Guard's
ability to carry out its other missions.36 The subsequent study, completed
in April 2004, found that inland construction tenders spent most of their
resource hours on the ATON mission with minimal impact or use in other
missions and provided one of the best opportunities for further study of
outsourcing.37 However, the study did not quantify the potential benefits
that could be derived from outsourcing these activities.

In August 2006 the Coast Guard completed an analysis as to whether ATON
functions could feasibly be outsourced, and which parts, if any, were
inherently governmental in nature.38 The objective of this analysis was to
compare the Coast Guard's inland construction and river buoy tender
operating costs with representative private sector marine industry costs
and make recommendations regarding the feasibility to commercially support
and operate the inspection, servicing, and contingency response capability
of the ATON mission and assets. According to Coast Guard officials, the
results will be incorporated into future acquisition plans for replacing
the current capabilities represented by inland construction tenders and
river buoy tenders. This Coast Guard analysis was finalized after we had
completed our audit work. Therefore, we were unable to obtain and review
the study in time for the final preparation of this report.

35 This assessment was done using OMB's Program Assessment Rating Tool
(PART), which is a diagnostic rating tool meant to provide a consistent
approach to evaluating federal programs as part of the executive budget
formulation process. The assessment of the ATON program was completed in
2002.

36According to Coast Guard officials, a limited amount of ATON work is
currently contracted out in cases where the capabilities are needed only
occasionally or the work cannot be done by the Coast Guard's assets. For
example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some ATON work was
contracted to commercial providers that fixed navigational aids in waters
too shallow for the Coast Guard's construction tenders to reach.

37 BearingPoint, United States Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Business
Case Analysis, April 2004.

38 This study was commissioned by OMB in July 2006 and directed the Coast
Guard to provide a conceptual analysis regarding ATON assets operating in
the Western Rivers Waterways System. To accomplish this directive, the
Coast Guard conducted an economic analysis of the Coast Guard's inland
construction tender and river buoy tender assets.

Although possibilities for outsourcing were identified, outsourcing also
carries potential disadvantages, according to Coast Guard program
officials. Potential disadvantages they mentioned include the following:

           o  Outsourcing could lead loss of "surge" capability-that is, the
           capacity to respond to emergencies or unusual situations. In part,
           this capability may be needed within the ATON or icebreaking
           mission itself, such as when a hurricane or ice destroys or
           damages a large number of navigation aids. In the case of
           Hurricane Katrina, Coast Guard officials stated that because the
           Coast Guard had ATON assets such as construction tenders, crews
           were able to begin working immediately to repair damaged aids and
           get the waterways open to maritime traffic again. This "surge"
           capability may also be needed for other missions, such as occurs
           when ATON assets can be used to support search and rescue efforts.
           In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, some ATON
           assets provided logistical support for first responders or
           transported stranded individuals.

           o  Outsourcing may disrupt the Coast Guard's personnel structure
           and weaken the agency's ability to attract and retain personnel.
           Specifically, they are concerned that outsourcing would likely
           reduce opportunities that provide important experience for
           personnel to advance in their careers and eliminate positions that
           typically have more predictable work schedules than positions in
           some of the other Coast Guard's missions.

                            Concluding Observations

The Coast Guard has been using its domestic icebreaking vessels and its
ATON assets to a lesser extent, to accommodate the need for additional
homeland security activities in the post-September 11 environment, and it
is doing so thus far largely without curtailing ATON or domestic
icebreaking activities or unduly straining these assets past their
designed workloads. The available evidence also indicates that despite
some decline in the condition of some asset types, the Coast Guard's
ability to meet its aids-to-navigation and domestic icebreaking missions,
as indicated by mixed outcomes of its key mission performance measures,
has not shown clear trends of decline. Efforts by Coast Guard personnel to
troubleshoot operational problems and to take other steps to keep assets
operating appear to be one reason mission performance has not been further
affected, and many other factors, such as the harshness of a winter or the
severity of storm damage on navigation buoys and beacons, can also affect
performance results. For the present, however, the impact of these
additional mission responsibilities does not appear to be a cause for
alarm.

That said, the future of these assets bears close watching. The fact that
many of the assets have or will be approaching the end of their design
service lives could mean the need for rehabilitated or new assets may
become more pressing in the future. Another issue is whether current
operations, both in level and types of usage, are adding to these costs
and incidents beyond what the Coast Guard would normally expect. For
example, operating domestic icebreakers beyond their underway hours
limit-could potentially accelerate the level of decline. If this is the
case, using these assets to meet security missions could be meeting the
Coast Guard's immediate needs but accelerating the need for replacement or
rehabilitation. According to Coast Guard officials, the Coast Guard's
attempt to systematically rehabilitate or replace its ATON and domestic
icebreaking fleet was proposed at a time when competing demands likely
caused postponements of requests for the needed funds. These competing
demands, reflected largely in the Coast Guard's expensive and lengthy
Deepwater asset replacement program, will continue for some time, as will
other pressures on the federal budget. The Coast Guard is moving to
improve the process it uses to set budget priorities through actions such
as its new tool to link asset condition and funding decisions to better
identify the projects that will provide the most capability with the
limited funds that are available. Given that many of these actions are
recent and need a chance to work, it is too early to evaluate their
effectiveness. However, even as the Coast Guard takes steps to determine
how best to replace or rehabilitate its assets, limited budgetary
resources combined with other competing asset replacement programs already
in process will likely continue to challenge the Coast Guard to find
sufficient resources to carry out the options identified.

                                Agency Comments

We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Department of
Homeland Security and the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard provided technical
comments, which we have incorporated into the report as appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of
this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days
from the date of this letter. We will then send copies of this report to
the appropriate congressional committees; the Secretary of Homeland
Security; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; and other interested parties.
In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web
site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-9610 or [email protected]. Contact points for our Offices
of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last
page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report
are listed in appendix V.

Stephen L. Caldwell
Acting Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

This report examines the time spent by the U.S. Coast Guard's domestic
icebreaking and ATON assets on various missions, the condition of these
assets, and the actions the Coast Guard has taken to continue to achieve
the missions of these assets. Our work focused on three key questions: (1)
What are the recent trends in the amount of time these assets have
performed various missions? (2) What is the condition of the Coast Guard's
ATON and domestic icebreaking assets and how has their condition impacted
the performance of their primary missions? (3) What actions has the Coast
Guard taken to continue to achieve the missions of its ATON and domestic
icebreaking assets?

In identifying trends in the amount of time spent on missions and the
impact of these trends, we analyzed data from the Coast Guard's Abstract
of Operations (AOPS) database, which tracks resource hours for each asset.
For each asset type within our scope, we examined trends in the number of
resource hours spent between fiscal years 2001 and 2005 conducting each of
the Coast Guard's missions.1 To determine the reliability of this data, we
(1) reviewed the results of previous reliability assessments we have
conducted of this data for other work and (2) confirmed with the AOPS
program manager that the data and the manner in which it is managed has
not changed since the previous assessment that would affect its
reliability. We determined that the data was sufficiently reliable for the
purposes of this report. We supplemented our analysis of these resource
hours with documentation from interviews with asset program managers and
crews of ATON and domestic icebreaking assets.

In assessing the condition of the assets during fiscal years 2001 to 2005,
we analyzed what Coast Guard officials identified as the best available
condition measures. We obtained concurrence from the Office of Naval
Engineering and the Office of Cutter Forces that the appropriate measures
to use for the condition of assets were percent of time free of major
casualties, scheduled/unscheduled/Engineering Logistics Center maintenance
costs, and estimated deferred maintenance costs. To determine the
reliability of this data, we (1) reviewed the results of previous
reliability assessments we have conducted of this data for other work and
(2) examined responses the Coast Guard provided to a questionnaire we sent
requesting updated information on the administration and oversight of the
databases. We determined that the data was sufficiently reliable for the
purposes of this report. We supplemented our analysis of these measures
with documentation from internal Coast Guard reports, as well as from
interviews of asset program managers at Coast Guard headquarters and
crewmembers of the assets located in the field. In addition to talking
with crewmembers, we directly observed the condition of various assets
during our site visits to Alameda, Calif; Bayonne, N.J.; Buchanan, Tenn;
Baltimore, Md; Mobile, Ala; Seattle, Wash; Sault St. Marie, Mich; and
Atlantic Beach, N.C. These assets were selected to provide diversity in
terms of type and age of asset and geographic location. In addition, we
interviewed Coast Guard officials with the Area Commands in Alameda,
Calif., and Portsmouth, Va., as well as in Districts 5 and 13.

1 Due to a lack of data, we did not perform this analysis for the 72-foot
cable laying boat.

To determine the actions that the Coast Guard has undertaken to continue
to achieve the missions of its ATON and domestic icebreaking assets, we
interviewed officials with the Coast Guard's Engineering and Logistics
Center, Engineering and Logistics Directorate, Office of Naval
Engineering, Office of Boat Forces, and Office of Cutter Forces. To obtain
information on newer assets the Coast Guard has acquired, we also made
site visits to interview personnel and observe the assets in San
Francisco, Calif.; Atlantic Beach, N.C.; Baltimore, Md.; Cheboygan, Mich.;
and Mobile, Ala. To determine what proposals the Coast Guard has made to
rehabilitate or replace its ATON and domestic icebreaking assets, we
reviewed Coast Guard project documents and interviewed officials at Coast
Guard headquarters. We did not, however, verify the accuracy of the cost
estimates provided for those proposals. Finally, to determine the work the
Coast Guard has done to study the outsourcing of ATON and domestic
icebreaking mission activities and the potential impact of outsourcing
those activities, we interviewed Coast Guard officials at headquarters as
well as officials and crew members in the field. We also reviewed the
completed business case analysis of outsourcing opportunities for ATON
mission activities.

We performed our review from July 2005 to August 2006 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: Mission Resource Hours of ATON and Domestic Icebreaking
Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 to 2005

Appendix II provides information on the number of resource hours Coast
Guard ATON and domestic icebreaking assets have spent on various Coast
Guard missions during fiscal years 2001 through 2005. The Coast Guard
maintains information, on a program-by-program basis, about how resources,
such as vessels, boats, and aircraft, are used. Each hour that these
resources are used is called a resource hour. Resource hours are
accumulated and reported by quarter and represent the time spent by the
Coast Guard's major assets to conduct its programs. The table 8 shows by
asset type, the hours ATON and domestic icebreaking assets have spent on
each of Coast Guard's missions for each fiscal year, from 2001 through
2005. The percentage of each asset types' total fiscal year resource hours
that these hours represent is shown in parenthesis.

Table 8: Resource Hour Usage and Percent, by Asset Type and Mission
Program, Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005

Fiscal                                                           
year                 Non-homeland security                            Homeland security
225-foot seagoing buoy tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     80     0  4,366      0(0%)   447(6%)   918(13%)   0(0%)   171 58 (1%)   948(13%)    216(3%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (61%)                                          (2%)                    
2002    407     0  5,139      0(0%)     0(0%) 1,066(10%)   0(0%)   254  0 (0%) 3,547(33%)    200(2%) 
       (4%)  (0%)  (48%)                                          (2%)                    
2003     75    48  9,189     65(0%)    24(0%) 1,774(11%)   0(0%)    33     181 2,113(13%) 3,170(19%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (55%)                                          (0%)    (1%)            
2004    435    13 13,039    746(3%)    78(0%) 2,852(13%)  40(0%)   293   1,617  1,363(6%)  1,763(8%) 
       (2%)  (0%)  (59%)                                          (1%)    (7%)            
2005    631   195 13,118    622(3%) 1,171(6%)  1,606(8%) 234(1%)   765     175    618(3%)  1,962(9%) 
       (3%)  (1%)  (62%)                                          (4%)    (1%)            
175-foot coastal buoy tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001    129     0 12,158     82(1%)    35(0%)    339(2%)   0(0%)    56  3 (0%)  1,202(9%)      7(0%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (87%)                                          (0%)                    
2002     36     0 10,735      0(0%)        32      0(0%)   0(0%)   216 10 (0%) 3,389(23%)     21(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (74%)                                          (1%)                    
                                         (0%)                                             
2003    122    28 12,422    478(3%)    17(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     1     298 2,345(15%)    265(2%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (78%)                                          (0%)    (2%)            
2004      4     0 13,402    446(3%)    16(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)   159     358  1,341(9%)     25(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (85%)                                          (1%)    (2%)            
2005    136     0 14,375    120(1%)    30(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    34     585    749(5%)     18(0%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (90%)                                          (0%)    (4%)            
160-foot/100-foot/75-foot inland construction tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     19     1 12,929      0(0%)     3(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)    165(1%)      5(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      4     0 13,430      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  9 (0%)  1,403(9%)     73(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (90%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      2   119 13,896      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0 97 (1%)  1,034(7%)      8(0%) 
       (0%)  (1%)  (92%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      5    41 13,510      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)  1,368(9%)     11(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (90%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      1     0 17,272      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)  1,296(7%)     12(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (93%)                                          (0%)                    
140-foot icebreaking tugs
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     52    57  2,031 4,064(55%)     0(0%)    316(4%)  13(0%)    47  0 (0%)    681(9%)    121(2%) 
       (1%)  (1%)  (28%)                                          (1%)                    
2002     93   166  1,071 1,174(21%)     0(0%)     33(1%)   0(0%)   158 12 (0%) 2,849(50%)     89(2%) 
       (2%)  (3%)  (19%)                                          (3%)                    
2003    273   158    952 4,770(43%)     0(0%)     19(0%)   0(0%)   120  0 (0%) 4,695(42%)     72(1%) 
       (2%)  (1%)   (9%)                                          (1%)                    
2004     84   264  1,081 3,749(35%)     0(0%)    343(3%)  84(1%)   283  0 (0%) 4,655(44%)     93(1%) 
       (1%)  (2%)  (10%)                                          (3%)                    
2005    159   116    732 2,866(30%)     0(0%)    602(6%) 133(1%)    27  7 (0%) 4,795(51%)     22(0%) 
       (2%)  (1%)   (8%)                                          (0%)                    
100-foot/65-foot inland buoy tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     22     0  4,735       130%     3(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      1(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      5    43  3,234      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)   363(10%)      7(0%) 
       (0%)  (1%)  (89%)                                          (0%)                    
2003     57     6  3,336      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    24  0 (0%)     84(2%)      0(0%) 
       (2%)  (0%)  (95%)                                          (1%)                    
2004      4    38  2,250      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (2%)  (98%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      7    42  2,364      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (2%)  (98%)                                          (0%)                    
75-foot river buoy tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001      9     0 13,325      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)     78(1%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2002     31     0 14,406      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)     14(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2003     10     1 15,022      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)     70(0%)     17(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      1     0 12,109      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)     17(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      4     0 12,448      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)     17(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
65-foot river buoy tenders
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001      6     0  6,389      2(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)     27(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      8     0  6,087      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      6(0%)      4(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      5     0  6,385      9(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)     10(0%)     27(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (99%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      1    14  6,771      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      8(0%)      3(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      2     0  6,671      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      4(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
65-foot small harbor tugs
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     95   365  1,372 1,401(24%)   188(3%)     94(2%)   2(0%)   627  0 (0%) 1,345(23%)    369(6%) 
       (2%)  (6%)  (23%)                                         (11%)                    
2002     77   114  1,558    449(7%)     2(0%)     10(0%)   0(0%)   721  0 (0%) 3,795(56%)     83(1%) 
       (1%)  (2%)  (23%)                                         (11%)                    
2003     80    17    962 2,269(26%)     1(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)   800  0 (0%) 4,695(53%)     28(0%) 
             (0%)  (11%)                                          (9%)                    
       (1%)                                                                               
2004     62    64    755 1,586(25%)     0(0%)     13(0%)   0(0%)   978  0 (0%) 2,823(45%)     22(0%) 
       (1%)  (1%)  (12%)                                         (16%)                    
2005     26   598  1,254 1,092(18%)   376(6%)    260(4%) 179(3%)     0  0 (0%) 2,043(34%)    162(3%) 
       (0%) (10%)  (21%)                                          (0%)                    
64-foot aids-to-navigation boats
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001      0     0  1,216      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      0     0    635      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      0     0    747      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      0     0    580      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      0     0  1,109      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
63-foot aids-to-navigation boat
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001      0     0    199      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      7     4     98      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (6%)  (4%)  (90%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      0     0    179      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      0     0    195      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      0     0    197      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
55-foot aids-to-navigation boats
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001    100    17  4,182      0(0%)    12(0%)     53(1%)  12(0%)    19  0 (0%)     75(2%)      2(0%) 
       (2%)  (0%)  (94%)                                          (0%)                    
2002    155    80  3,985      0(0%)     0(0%)     35(1%)   0(0%)    24  0 (0%)    301(7%)      0(0%) 
       (3%)  (2%)  (87%)                                          (1%)                    
2003     45     0  3,820      0(0%)     9(0%)     20(0%)   0(0%)   320  0 (0%)   970(19%)     13(0%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (74%)                                          (6%)                    
2004     45     5  3,643      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)   211  0 (0%)     89(2%)      3(0%) 
       (1%)  (0%)  (91%)                                          (5%)                    
2005    196     0  4,338      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0 80 (2%)     86(2%)      0(0%) 
       (4%)  (0%)  (92%)                                          (0%)                    
49-foot stern loading buoy boats
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     23     0  9,477      8(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   4(0%)    17  0 (0%) 1,373(13%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (87%)                                          (0%)                    
2002     18    14  6,863      3(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    30  0 (0%)    638(8%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (91%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      5     8  8,079     11(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    14  0 (0%)    852(9%)     94(1%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (89%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      7     0  7,883     26(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    18  0 (0%)    283(3%)     31(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (96%)                                          (0%)                    
2005     18     0  6,588     19(0%)     9(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)    233(3%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (96%)                                          (0%)                    
45-foot buoy boats
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001      0     0  1,024      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2002      0     0    494      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2003      0     0    248      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2004      0     0    373      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
2005      0     0    526      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)     0  0 (0%)      0(0%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%) (100%)                                          (0%)                    
21-foot trailerable aids-to-navigation boats
        SAR    MS   ATON    Ice ops       MEP        LMR    Drug Other Migrant       PWCS    Defense 
                                                                    LE                    
2001     48     9 25,429      0(0%)    12(0%)      1(0%)   1(0%)    64  0 (0%)    401(2%)      2(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (98%)                                          (0%)                    
2002     23     2 23,798      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    79  7 (0%)        590      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (97%)                                          (0%)                    
                                                                                     (2%) 
2003     55     4 20,961      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    29  4 (0%)    687(3%)      7(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (96%)                                          (0%)                    
2004     52    12 22,616      0(0%)     0(0%)      0(0%)   0(0%)    62  0 (0%)   1347(6%)      7(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (94%)                                          (0%)                    
2005     89     0 20,105      0(0%)     5(0%)      0(0%)  26(0%)     0  0 (0%)    407(2%)      0(0%) 
       (0%)  (0%)  (97%)                                          (0%)                    

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard data.

Notes: Due to rounding, percentages may not add to 100 percent for each
fiscal year.

The Coast Guard's mission categories are as follows: SAR: Search and
Rescue MS: Marine Safety ATON: Aids-to-Navigation Ice ops: Ice operations
such as domestic icebreaking MEP: Marine Environmental Protection LMR:
Living Marine Resources Drug: Illegal Drug Interdiction Migrant: Migrant
Interdiction Other LE: Foreign Fisheries Enforcement PWCS: Ports,
Waterways, and Coastal Security Defense: Defense Readiness

Appendix III: Condition Measure of ATON
and Domestic Icebreaking Assets, Fiscal Years 2000 to 2005

Condition Measure for ATON and Domestic Icebreaking Cutters

Appendix III provides information on the condition of the Coast Guard's
ATON and domestic icebreaking assets. The Coast Guard's key summary
measure of condition-percent of time free (POTF)-of major casualties shows
a mixed picture of condition for ATON and domestic icebreaking cutters.
However, the measure captures only major equipment casualties, which
degrade mission capabilities but does not capture minor equipment
casualties that may also degrade mission capabilities. As such, this
measure may underestimate the decline in asset condition. The Coast Guard
has acknowledged the limitations of this measure and is working on a
replacement for it. Because the Coast Guard is in the process of
developing a new condition metric and did not have fiscal year 2005 data
available, our analysis covers fiscal years 2000 through 2004. See table 9
for individual POTF figures for the ATON and domestic icebreaking cutter
assets for fiscal years 2000 through 2004.

Table 9: Percent of Time Free of Major Casualties for ATON and Domestic
Icebreaking Cutters, Fiscal Years 2000 through 2004

Fiscal year                                      POTF 
225-foot seagoing buoy tenders          
2000                                              100 
2001                                               16 
2002                                               49 
2003                                               80 
2004                                               55 
175-foot coastal buoy tenders           
2000                                               86 
2001                                               78 
2002                                               64 
2003                                               66 
2004                                               65 
160-foot/100-foot/75-foot inland construction tenders
2000                                               86 
2001                                               53 
2002                                               67 
2003                                               52 
2004                                               59 
140-foot icebreaking tugs               
2000                                               69 
2001                                               50 
2002                                               67 
2003                                               45 
2004                                               47 
100-foot/65-foot inland buoy tenders    
2000                                               97 
2001                                               97 
2002                                               91 
2003                                               87 
2004                                               69 
75-foot river buoy tenders              
2000                                               92 
2001                                               86 
2002                                               77 
2003                                               83 
2004                                               71 
65-foot river buoy tenders              
2000                                              100 
2001                                               71 
2002                                               75 
2003                                               90 
2004                                               89 
65-foot small harbor tugs               
2000                                               89 
2001                                               70 
2002                                               83 
2003                                               76 
2004                                               82 

Source: U.S. Coast Guard.

Condition Measure for ATON Boats

The Coast Guard has less data for ATON boats, with POTF figures available
for only fiscal year 2005. Based on these figures most boats appear to be
in fair to poor condition. In addition to these figures, the Coast Guard
has performed an internal assessment of condition using two approaches,
one for standard and another for nonstandard boats. For standard boats the
Coast Guard assessed condition through a process referred to as ship
structure and machinery evaluation boards (SSMEB). While, for nonstandard
boats the Coast Guard assessed condition by obtaining anecdotal evidence
from district managers, maintenance managers, annual boat inspection
reports, and site visits. This internal assessment, however, seems to
further support our original finding that the Coast Guard's POTF figure
may be underestimating condition. As you will see in table 10 below, while
the 45-foot buoy boat and 21-foot trailerable aids-to-navigation boat had
POTF percentages above 90 percent, their internal assessment of condition
was rated at poor.

Table 10: Condition of ATON Boats as Evidenced by POTF and Internal Coast
Guard Assessment

                                           POTF for FY Coast Guard assessment 
Asset                                          2005 of condition           
Standard boats                          
55-foot aids-to-navigation boat               90.1% Fair                   
49-foot buoy stern loading boat               88.1% Good                   
Nonstandard boats                       
64-foot aids-to-navigation boat               88.6% Good                   
63-foot aids-to-navigation boat               79.5% Fair                   
45-foot buoy boat                             97.1% Poor                   
21-foot trailerable aids-to-navigation        90.7% Poor                   
boat                                                

Source: U.S. Coast Guard.

Appendix IV: Maintenance Trends of ATON
Cutter and Domestic Icebreaking Assets, Fiscal Years 2001 to 2005

Maintenance Trends

Appendix IV provides information on the maintenance costs spent on the
Coast Guard's ATON cutter and domestic icebreaking assets during fiscal
years 2001 to 2005. Maintenance cost data for domestic icebreakers and
ATON cutters shows a consistent increasing trend. The cost figures are
broken out by scheduled (planned maintenance), unscheduled (unforeseen
maintenance), and Engineering Logistic Center (ELC) (fleetwide projects
that require engineering assistance) amounts, which allow for a more
specific analysis as to the type of increase being incurred. Table 11
shows the individual maintenance cost data, adjusted for inflation using
2005 dollars, for ATON cutters and domestic icebreakers for fiscal years
2001 through 2005.

Table 11: Maintenance Costs for ATON Cutters and Domestic Icebreakers,
Fiscal Years 2001 through 2005

                                                                   Total (scheduled,
                          Fiscal Unscheduled  Scheduled            unscheduled, ELC)
Cutter Type                 year        cost       cost   ELC cost              cost
225-foot seagoing buoy      2001    $197,500 $2,300,492 $1,057,645        $3,555,637
tenders                     2002    605,637   3,372,110   2,868,107  6,845,853 
                            2003    798,994   5,167,818   1,625,370  7,592,182 
                            2004    914,750   5,703,552   2,946,798  9,565,099 
                            2005  4,313,387   6,715,405   2,631,631 13,660,422 
175-foot coastal buoy       2001     246,665  3,288,053    294,868         3,829,585
tenders                     2002    316,694   7,054,995     821,725  8,193,414 
                            2003    806,494   7,490,459     674,800  8,971,752 
                            2004    591,828   5,141,464     495,708  6,229,000 
                            2005    555,245   2,672,709   1,014,257  4,242,210 
160-foot/100-foot/75-foot   2001     124,735  1,943,315    343,346         2,411,396
inland construction         2002    366,968   2,889,575     192,786  3,449,329 
tenders                     2003    251,036   3,781,760   1,366,811  5,399,607 
                            2004    356,726   3,966,089   3,318,928  7,641,742 
                            2005    437,112   2,605,441   8,316,939 11,359,492 
100-foot/65-foot inland     2001      39,425    554,900      9,970           604,295
buoy tenders                2002     14,219     595,933       6,391    616,543 
                            2003     35,661     813,977      94,620    944,258 
                            2004     94,856   1,168,921      17,748  1,281,525 
                            2005     81,453     177,082      63,294    321,828 
140-foot icebreaking tugs   2001     343,902  1,885,671    192,131         2,421,703
                            2002    190,010   2,789,443     206,031  3,185,483 
                            2003    225,959   1,748,739     850,783  2,825,481 
                            2004    344,080   2,954,156   1,245,042  4,543,277 
                            2005    449,911   3,339,509   1,258,332  5,047,752 
75-foot river buoy          2001     102,701  2,587,246          0         2,689,947
tenders                     2002    308,977   1,808,732           0  2,117,709 
                            2003    141,748   1,309,262           0  1,451,010 
                            2004    259,143   1,591,882       6,870  1,857,895 
                            2005    355,520   2,122,927      50,251  2,528,697 
65-foot river buoy          2001      77,169    387,648          0           464,816
tenders                     2002     81,662   2,140,323       3,031  2,225,017 
                            2003     80,862   1,449,003      30,480  1,560,344 
                            2004    127,692     904,538           0  1,032,230 
                            2005     55,117     343,930      69,701    468,748 
65-foot small harbor tugs   2001     100,009    724,359     46,244           870,612
                            2002     36,852   1,086,856      95,173  1,218,882 
                            2003     81,196   1,056,155     136,783  1,274,133 
                            2004    125,441   1,098,967      83,688  1,308,096 
                            2005    110,001   1,136,472       9,919  1,256,392 

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard data.

Note: The numbers presented in this table have been adjusted for inflation
using 2005 dollars.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Stephen L. Caldwell, Acting Director, Homeland Security and Justice
Issues, (202) 512-9610, or [email protected] .

Acknowledgments

In addition to the above, individuals making key contributions to this
report include Chuck Bausell, Melanie Brown, Steve Calvo, Michele Fejfar,
Geoffrey Hamilton, Christopher Hatscher, Stephanie Sand, Stan Stenersen,
Gladys Toro, and Friendly Vang-Johnson.

Related GAO Products

Coast Guard: Non-Homeland Security Performance Measures Are Generally
Sound, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist. GAO-06-816 . Washington,
D.C.: August 16, 2006.

Coast Guard: Observations on the Preparation, Response, and Recovery
Missions Related to Hurricane Katrina.  GAO-06-903. Washington, D.C.: July
31, 2006.

Coast Guard: Observations on Agency Performance, Operations, and Future
Challenges. GAO-06-448T. Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2006.

Maritime Security: Enhancements Made, but Implementation and
Sustainability Remain Key Challenges. GAO-05-448T. Washington, D.C.: May
17, 2005.

Maritime Security: New Structures Have Improved Information Sharing, but
Security Clearance Processing Requires Further Attention. GAO-05-394.
Washington, D.C.: April 15, 2005.

Coast Guard: Observations on Agency Priorities in Fiscal Year 2006 Budget
Request. GAO-05-364T. Washington, D.C.: March 17, 2005.

Coast Guard: Station Readiness Improving, but Resource Challenges and
Management Concerns Remain. GAO-05-161. Washington, D.C.: January 31,
2005.

Homeland Security: Process for Reporting Lessons Learned from Seaport
Exercises Needs Further Attention. GAO-05-170. Washington, D.C.: January
14, 2005.

Port Security: Better Planning Needed to Develop and Operate Maritime
Worker Identification Card Program. GAO-05-106. Washington, D.C.: December
10, 2004.

Maritime Security: Better Planning Needed to Help Ensure an Effective Port
Security Assessment Program. GAO-04-1062. Washington, D.C.: September 30,
2004.

Maritime Security: Partnering Could Reduce Federal Costs and Facilitate
Implementation of Automatic Vessel Identification System. GAO-04-868.
Washington, D.C.: July 23, 2004.

Maritime Security: Substantial Work Remains to Translate New Planning
Requirements into Effective Port Security. GAO-04-838. Washington, D.C.:
June 30, 2004.

Coast Guard: Key Management and Budget Challenges for Fiscal Year 2005 and
Beyond. GAO-04-636T. Washington, D.C.: April 7, 2004.

Homeland Security: Summary of Challenges Faced in Targeting Oceangoing
Cargo Containers for Inspection. GAO-04-557T. Washington, D.C.: March 31,
2004.

Homeland Security: Preliminary Observations on Efforts to Target Security
Inspections of Cargo Containers. GAO-04-325T. Washington, D.C.: December
16, 2003.

Posthearing Questions Related to Aviation and Port Security. GAO-04-315R.
Washington, D.C.: December 12, 2003.

Maritime Security: Progress Made in Implementing Maritime Transportation
Security Act, but Concerns Remain. GAO-03-1155T. Washington, D.C.:
September 9, 2003.

Homeland Security: Efforts to Improve Information Sharing Need to Be
Strengthened. GAO-03-760. Washington D.C.: August 27, 2003.

Container Security: Expansion of Key Customs Programs Will Require Greater
Attention to Critical Success Factors. GAO-03-770. Washington, D.C.: July
25, 2003.

Homeland Security: Challenges Facing the Department of Homeland Security
in Balancing Its Border Security and Trade Facilitation Missions.
GAO-03-902T. Washington, D.C.: June 16, 2003.

Transportation Security: Post-September 11th Initiatives and Long-Term
Challenges. GAO-03-616T. Washington, D.C.: April 1, 2003.

Port Security: Nation Faces Formidable Challenges in Making New
Initiatives Successful. GAO-02-993T. Washington, D.C.: August 5, 2002.

Combating Terrorism: Preliminary Observations on Weaknesses in Force
Protection for DOD Deployments through Domestic Seaports. GAO-02-955TNI.
Washington, D.C.: July 23, 2002.

Coat Guard: Non-Homeland Security Performance Measures Are Generally
Sound, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist. GAO-06-816, Washington,
D.C.: August 16, 2006.

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www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt? GAO-06-979 .

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and methodology, click on the link above.

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Highlights of GAO-06-979 , a report to the Subcommittee on Fisheries and
Coast Guard, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S.
Senate

September 2006

COASTGUARD

Condition of Some Aids-to-Navigation and Domestic Icebreaking Vessels Has
Declined; Effect on Mission Performance Appears Mixed

The marine transportation system is a critical part of the nation's
infrastructure. To facilitate the safety and efficiency of this system,
the Coast Guard maintains aids-to-navigation (ATON), such as buoys and
beacons, and conducts domestic icebreaking in the Great Lakes, St.
Lawrence Seaway, and northeast coast. To conduct these missions, the Coast
Guard has a fleet of more than 200 vessels, ranging from 225-foot seagoing
buoy tenders and 140-foot domestic icebreakers to 21-foot boats. After the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many of these assets took on
additional responsibilities for security patrols and other homeland
security duties. Although some assets have been recently acquired, many
others are reaching or have exceeded their design service lives, raising
concerns about how well and for how much longer these older assets may be
able to carry out their missions. In response, GAO examined (1) recent
trends in the amount of time these assets have spent performing missions;
(2) asset condition and its effect on mission performance; and (3) the
actions taken by the Coast Guard to continue to achieve the missions of
these assets.

To conduct this work, GAO reviewed Coast Guard documents, interviewed
Coast Guard officials, and made site visits to various locations around
the country.

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Coast Guard provided
technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate.

Many ATON vessels and domestic icebreakers have operated more hours in
recent years than in previous years, with the increase coming mainly in
homeland security missions. Domestic icebreakers are now used more for
homeland security than for icebreaking, reflecting their availability at
times of the year when no icebreaking is needed. While not designed for
homeland security, the assets can perform such duties acceptably,
according to the Coast Guard. Most ATON vessels are used primarily for
ATON activities. Newer ATON assets receive the greatest use on other
missions, reflecting their greater multi-mission capabilities.

Trends are mixed with regard to asset condition and mission performance.
Available evidence, such as the amount of maintenance conducted, suggests
condition is declining for some assets, though not precipitously. Coast
Guard officials said some assets, while being operated for more hours, are
still largely being operated within planned limits. Against this backdrop,
indicators for measuring performance show mixed results: some have
declined, while others have not. The current measure for asset condition
is not clearly linked to mission performance, but the Coast Guard is
working on developing a measure that links the two.

Actions the Coast Guard has taken to continue to achieve the missions of
these assets include revising maintenance approaches and developing a new
analytical tool for deciding which projects provide the most capability
for the dollars invested. The Coast Guard continues to acquire some new
vessels to replace aging ones, but proposals to rehabilitate or replace
other aging vessels have not been implemented, largely because of other
funding priorities. The Coast Guard also studied the feasibility of
contracting out some activities. While some possibilities for outsourcing
were identified in the study, the Coast Guard has identified potential
disadvantages to outsourcing these activities.

Coast Guard Buoy Tender (left) and Domestic Icebreaker (right)
*** End of document. ***