Page Additional U.S. Coast Guard Questions to the Record for the March 19, 1997, Hearing on the President's Fiscal Year 1998 Budget Request for the U.S. Coast Guard 554 (IV) THE PRESIDENT'S FISCAL YEAR 1999 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE U.S. COAST GUARD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1998 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, TRANSPORTATION, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wayne T. Gilchrest (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. GILCHREST. The Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Administration hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everybody here this morning. We certainly look forward to the admiral's testimony and to Commodore Tucker, and soon-to-be Mr. Rick Trent, civilian. I guess the admiral's headed in that direction as well. But we look forward to your testimony this morning. I'm pleased to welcome everyone here to discuss the President's U.S. Coast Guard budget request for Fiscal Year 1999. The administration's budget request for Fiscal Year 1999 is $4.3 billion, an increase of about $45 million over the amount appropriated for Coast Guard activities during Fiscal Year 1998. The President also proposed I would say a rather controversial policy to establish charges for waterways navigation, with estimated proceeds of $35 million next year. I am most concerned with the President's proposal to cut Coast Guard drug interdiction re sources. The President's Fiscal Year 1999 Coast Guard budget request is $2.77 million for Coast Guard operations, including $372 million for drug interdiction operations. This is only 1.6 percent over the Fiscal Year 1998 level of drug interdiction effort, and a cut of $100 million from the Fiscal Year 1997 level, the most successful year on record. Last October, the House passed H.R. 2204, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1997. Our bill provided substantial additional amounts of money for drug interdiction operations and equipment. The level of drug interdiction proposed by the President is basically a severe step backward in my opinion, just when we should be mounting an aggressive campaign against rising drug usage in this country. The borders that we are protecting are not infinite. The sources for drug transport are not infinite. We're working with a finite set of circumstances here, and collectively I believe this government (1) has the intelligence to come up with a plan, whatever you want to call it a war on drugs, for adequate drug interdiction. But I truly believe that we have the intelligence to come up with a plan to virtually eliminate drug transport to the United States if we're serious about it. Another troubling aspect of this budget request is the administration's insistence on establishing a waterways user charge. Although we have no details from the administration on this proposal, it's safe to say that there is no legal authority for the executive branch to establish a charge of this type. The waterways user charge is a tax intended to raise revenue for the Coast Guard for unrelated programs. Now, there's nothing wrong with raising revenue for the Coast Guard; I guess it's just a matter of how it happens. The Coast Guard already charges legitimate user fees for vessel inspection, documentation, as well as issuance of licenses and merchant mariner's documents. I hope the administration will reconsider this particular proposal. In closing, I would simply like to say, once again, that the Coast Guard has an enormous responsibility for this country, whether it's in drug interdiction, saving lives, rescuing people on the high seas, interdicting illegal immigrants, or its far-reaching environmental area of responsibility. And so, collectively the Coast Guard has served this Nation extremely well, and as we pursue the budget request and continue the rest of this year in our hearings and markups, we'll make sure that the Coast Guard receives its due respect and receives the funding that is necessary to carry out its responsibilities. I now yield to Mr. Clement. Mr. CLEMENT. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's great having all of you here today, and as the chairman said, I am a former college President. When I first got to Congress people would come up to me and say, "Man, you're a congressman now. That's really something." I said, "Well, that's right, but you're going to have to understand for 42 years they called me Mr. President, so I sort of got used to that.” And as the chairman knows, I'm also a veteran in the military, as well. So there's less and less members of Congress that are veterans. But I'm very proud of that fact. But thank you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling this hearing on the President's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 1999, the Coast Guard. The President has requested that Congress appropriate approximately $4.3 billion for Coast Guard programs for Fiscal Year 1999. Over the last two decades, Congress has asked the Coast Guard to expand their missions and responsibility. However, I'm beginning to question how resources are prioritized when deciding which missions are most important to fund. I'm particularly concerned about the lack of resources that are being allocated to drug interdiction activity. We should increase, not decrease, the number of aircraft and cutter hours assigned to the Caribbean and southern California coast. I believe that the Coast Guard should consider building a few more 87-foot patrol boats, assign these new boats to the Continental United States, and permanently moving some 100-foot patrol boats down to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In 1997, the Coast Guard interdicted 206,155 pounds of drugs. In Fiscal Year 1999, the Coast Guard believe they will only interdict 167,000 pounds. The rest of the drugs are going to be sold on our streetsand in our schools I believe this is totally unacceptable. The Coast Guard is going to be combatting drug smugglers for the next 20 years; therefore, we should permanently assign more vessels to this mission. Meanwhile, we're going to spend 17.6 percent of the operating budget on fisheries law enforcement, while we only spend 13.3 percent on drug interdiction. While fisheries enforcement is important, keeping drugs off our streets is more important. Maybe it is time for Congress to set a minimum amount of resources dedicated to the Coast Guard's drug interdiction mission and the Coast Guard Authorization Bill. The Coast Guard's efforts in Operation Frontier Shield was successful in interdicting drugs that would have gone through Puerto Rico. I'm disappointed that we will not be able to continue these efforts this coming year. Admiral Kramek, as I said last year, the Coast Guard is doing a commendable job implementing the Government Performance and Results Act. On January 8th, Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Oberstar, our ranking democratic member, wrote Transportation secretary, Rodney Slater, urging you to consider using the financial management software developed by the Army Corps of Engineers, rather than spending millions to develop your own software. We're hopeful that you can save time and money, even if it only accomplishes 95 percent of what you want in an ideal world. We're disappointed that almost 2 months after the letter was written, the Coast Guard has yet to visit the Corps for an initial presentation. Our staff was able to have a presentation in less than 2 weeks. Using this type of free software will free up otherwise scarce resources for your acquisition and construction budget. Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I'm very disappointed about the administration's proposal to charge what they call a user fee for navigational aids operated and maintained by the Coast Guard. These fees are clearly unlawful, since they are really a tax. Buoys, lighthouses, and other navigational aids protect our citizens and the environment from maritime disaster. Every citizen of the United States benefits from this system of 50,000 buoys. Therefore, our navigational aid system has always been funded out of the general treasury. While the navigation tax proposal may not have been initiated by the Coast Guard, they are ultimately going to take most of the heat, since they're the ones that will develop the regulations to charge these fees. I urge the legal staff at OMB and the Department of Justice to carefully examine the many court cases involving user fees, and they too will conclude that the administration lacks the legal authority to charge user taxes for aids to navigation. Thank you, Chairman Gilchrest, and I look forward to working with you on the authorization of appropriations for the Coast Guard, once the Senate has passed the Authorization Bill this aisle sent them last year. Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Clement. I'll now introduce Admiral Robert Kramek, Commandant United States Coast Guard; Master Chief Petty Officer Rick Trent, United States Coast Guard; and Everette Tucker, National Commodore of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. Gentleman, we look forward to your testimony. TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL ROBERT E. KRAMEK, U.S. COAST GUARD, ACCOMPANIED BY MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER ERIC A. TRENT, AND COMMODORE EVERETTE L. TUCKER, JR., U.S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY Admiral KRAMEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll make a brief oral statement, and submit my written statement for the record. Also joining us in the room today is Vice Admiral Jim Loy, my chief of staff of the Coast Guard, who will relieve me as Commandant at the end of May. Mr. GILCHREST. Admiral, we have a lighting system that doesn't seem to be working, so we'll probably just turn it off. Admiral KRAMEK. I'll take less than 5 minutes. And then Commodore Everette Tucker and Master Chief Rick Trent have some short opening statements as well. We have a good team, and I'm surrounded by part of my team here. Ev has 34,000 auxiliarists and volunteers that work for him, and the Master Chief takes care of over 30,000 of our enlisted personnel. All totaled, our Coast Guard calls itself Team Coast Guard, because that's the way we work together to get our job done. This team had a very productive year as lifesavers and guardians of the sea. With all that we do, we do lifesaving first when people call for help. Over 5,000 lives saved this year, 50,000 calls for rescue and assistance, and over $2.5 billion in property saved. We also have kept our oceans safe and clean around the world. You had an opportunity to visit many of our stations this year, Mr. Chairman, and go all the way to Antarctica with the Master Chief to see us break out McMurdo to resupply. You know how environmentally sensitive that area is. But we work with the International Maritime Organization, leading the U.S. delegation for safer shipping, for cleaner seas. There's been less oil spills, there's been less accidents. Our passenger vessel industry in this country is the safest in the world, and it's just tremendous achievements made by our marine industry on all fronts. We also protect our living marine resources and, Mr. Clement mentioned how much we spend on fisheries. Fisheries are a major source of protein for the developing countries of the world; and major countries of the world, Russia and China, depend on 40 percent of their protein from the sea, and you know how huge those countries are. That's what's put a tremendous stress on our fisheries. And as we've gone through fisheries management plans and enforcement plans-which is not the responsibility of the Coast Guard, rather the responsibility of Department of Commerce-it's given us a huge amount of work to do. The United States has the largest exclusive economic zone of any country in the world; 47,000 miles of shorelines out to 200 miles. |