International Consensus on Small Boats

DHS policymakers spend a lot of time worrying about threats that haven’t happened yet. We also take a lot of grief from people who think that all our worrying is a waste of time—or, worse, an intentional strategy of fear-mongering. So it’s important to note those occasions when our worries have turned out to be on target.

The most recent such confirmation comes in the context of small boat terrorist attacks.

Two weeks ago, in Mumbai, India, terrorists seized a fishing vessel, killed its crew, navigated to Mumbai, and used small inflatable boats to come ashore for their attack.

DHS spent much of the last year on measures to reduce the risk that terrorists will be able to use small boats in an attack on this country.

In April, 2008, the Department developed a Small Vessel Security Strategy. The strategy outlines the goals and objectives that the Department component agencies, especially the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, will work toward. Supporting the strategy an interagency working group has been developing an implementation plan which in the coming weeks will outline the Department’s specific intentions. All of this effort has been done in coordination with the owners and operators of small vessels, including American fishing fleets, recreational craft associations, and commercial passenger and cargo vessels.

And less than a week ago, on December 5th, an international effort led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, resulted in the approval by the International Maritime Organization of new guidelines for small vessel security.

A year in the making, the new guidelines provide recommendations for governments and the owners and operators of small vessels and related facilities such as marinas. The recommendations encourage the registry of vessels and the sharing of such registry information between governments, the installation of access controls at marinas and on small commercial craft, as well as guidance on how to conduct vessel searches.

Numerous delegations at the International Maritime Organization meeting expressed their intent to implement the guidelines within their domestic security programs.

Getting the international community to focus on terrorism, and especially on new terrorism threats, is not a job for the impatient, but this is a case where DHS was both patient and ahead of the curve, and the reward is that we were able to move swiftly once an international consensus emerged.

Stewart Baker
Assistant Secretary, Policy

State of the Coast Guard

Yesterday I delivered my second State of the Coast Guard address at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. In this annual address to the Coast Guard, our interagency partners and our maritime stakeholders, I focused on the Coast Guard’s future – the strategy, legislation, and budget we need to build a 21st Century Coast Guard.

Since becoming Commandant nearly two years ago, I’ve traveled across the country and around the world to meet personally with thousands of Coast Guard active duty, reserve, Auxiliary and civilian employees. I made a commitment to them that we would provide the equipment, support and training they needed do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. I pledged to continue to recapitalize our aging fleet and command and control systems. I’m pleased to report that we are seeing the results of those efforts right now.

The Coast Guard’s first major cutter to be built in more than 25 years, the National Security Cutter Bertholf, successfully completed sea trials this week and we are preparing to missionize three new HC-144 Ocean Sentry maritime patrol aircraft. We are also well underway in our reorganization of our force structure, having made significant progress across all fronts to modernize and transform the service over the past year and a half. More importantly, we’ve provided a vital service to the American public and reached new milestones in our history in the past year, such as the removal of a record-breaking 350,000 pounds of cocaine at sea and our celebration of a million lives saved since 1790.

Going forward, the Coast Guard cannot rest on our reputation or remain fixated on our wake. Now is the time to build a 21st Century Coast Guard, one that will be responsive to the environment as it evolves around us. As a unique instrument of national security, we will work closer than ever with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to put our cooperative maritime strategy in action. As America’s lifesavers and guardians, we will enhance our marine safety program, develop our intelligence and maritime domain awareness, and take action to restore our polar icebreaking fleet, as we prepare to operate in an increasingly open Arctic. We also need to grow the Coast Guard. We cannot continue to meet the ever growing needs and higher expectations of our citizens with a workforce that is essentially no bigger than it was 50 years ago. That is why I will fight for every penny of the President’s FY09 $9.3 billion budget request. It is a down payment on the future of America’s Coast Guard.

Never before has this nation relied so heavily on our oceans and waterways for the safety, security and prosperity of all Americans. And never before has this nation relied so much on its Coast Guard to protect the environment and our keep our communities safe and secure. We will answer that call.

All threats. All hazards. Always ready.

Admiral Thad Allen
Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard

Marine Safety and Security--Two Sides of the Same Coin

Since the attacks of 9/11, the Coast Guard has adapted to meet the growing needs of the nation and the challenges surrounding new and evolving threats of the 21st century. We have grown and taken on new missions while moving from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Homeland Security. Some members of Congress and within the commercial maritime industry have expressed concern recently that the Coast Guard’s emphasis on protecting the homeland from terrorism detracts from other Coast Guard missions, like our marine safety program.

I am committed to our long-standing legacy missions as much as I am to our expanded homeland security mission, especially since marine safety and security are not mutually exclusive. They are both vital to our national interests and must be closely coordinated to be effective. The fact is, safety and security are two sides of the same coin. It is precisely that paradigm that makes the Coast Guard so effective and efficient. We employ a unique combination of military, humanitarian, and federal law enforcement authorities and capabilities to keep our waterways and critical maritime infrastructure safe and secure. Our greatest strength is our responsive, flexible and adaptive character. We are always ready – for all maritime threats and hazards.

In the past six months alone, Coast Guard men and women have responded to the call for help on the high seas from mariners and ships hailing from across the globe – from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. Like most emergencies at sea, these situations were complicated and required much more than simply rescuing mariners in distress. They involved crewmembers and cargos from around the world, as well as the potential for major oil spills.

Today, more than ever before, our safety, security and environmental stewardship missions are inextricably linked like the interwoven threads of knitted blanket. Remove one thread and the others begin to unravel.

Many of you may think of the Coast Guard as lifesavers and guardians. Saving lives is one of our first and proudest missions, but we believe preventing maritime disasters is just as important as responding to them when they do occur. The Coast Guard is a world leader in helping prevent accidents at sea and maintaining the security of cargo and ports. Our marine safety program is responsible for ensuring the safe operation and navigation of some 20,000 U.S. and foreign-flagged vessels.

Each year, Coast Guard inspectors conduct more than 70,000 domestic vessel inspections and 10,000 port state control exams to help safeguard maritime commerce, international trade and supply chain security. Trained investigators also conduct 14,000 casualty, suspension and revocation, and civil penalty cases annually to investigate marine accidents and violations. These investigations help prevent future maritime tragedies and leverage lessons-learned to make maritime commerce safer. All of these duties are carried out by a cadre of approximately 1,000 trained uniformed and civilian inspectors, investigators and port state control officers stationed all across the nation and around the world.

Our marine safety program needs to grow to keep pace with significant expansion in the worldwide maritime industry, and we are working toward that end. This August, I commissioned a review of our marine safety program and on September 25, I provided a comprehensive plan to Congress (Enhancing the Coast Guard Marine Safety Program). The plan outlines more than a dozen new initiatives under three broader program goals that I intend to pursue and implement with the support of Congress, in cooperation with the commercial marine industry. The first goal is to improve major marine safety program capacity, competency and performance. The second goal is to enhance service delivery to mariners and industry customers. The third goal is to expand outreach and advisory mechanisms for industry and maritime communities.

We are also modernizing the Coast Guard – improving our organizational structure so that in any maritime incident, we can get our folks where they need to be, with the right training and equipment, in the quickest way possible. To better serve the American public, we also brought together our rapidly deployable emergency response teams under one Deployable Operations Group command, whose skills and capabilities complement those of other Federal, state and local response agencies. Like the rest of the Coast Guard, these highly trained deployable teams carry out a broad range of safety, security and environmental protection missions.

As I told the Propeller Club of DC a few weeks ago, as we work to improve our Marine Safety program and our service delivery structure, we will remain focused on all of our core roles and missions. The Coast Guard will always be about protecting our citizens, our communities, the marine environment, and U.S. economic and security interests within our ports and inland waterways, along our coasts, and around the globe. Just as we have for 217 years, America’s Coast Guard will be there to keep all of us safe and secure.

Admiral Thad W. Allen
Commandant U.S. Coast Guard