The Coast Guard has overall federal responsibility for many aspects of  port security and is involved in a wide variety of activities. The Coast Guard’s homeland security role is still evolving; however, its  resource commitments to this area are substantial and will likely grow. Our past  work on government restructuring and reorganization has identified a  number of factors that are critical to success in these efforts. Our testimony today focuses on six of these factors—strategic  planning, communication and partnership-building, performance  management, human capital strategy, information management and  technology, and acquisition management—and, based on past work, some  of the key challenges the Coast Guard faces in addressing and resolving  them. Strategic planning  is important within the Coast Guard, which now faces a challenge in  merging past planning efforts with the new realities of homeland security. Most notably, as part of the current military  build-up in the Middle East, the Coast Guard has sent nine cutters to assist  the DOD in the event of war with Iraq. Where homeland security once played a relatively small part in the Coast  Guard’s missions, a new plan must now delineate the goals, objectives,  strategies, resource requirements, and implementation timetables for  achieving this vastly expanded role while still balancing resources among  its various other missions. The agency is now developing a strategic  deployment plan for its homeland security mission and plans to finish it  sometime this year. Second, they include the relationships among the components of a  parent department, such as DHS. However, the Coast Guard  has work under way to define its homeland security mission and the  desired outcomes stemming from that mission. For example, to deal with its expanded homeland  security role and meet all of its other responsibilities, the Coast Guard  expects to add thousands of new positions over the next 3 years. We will continue to assess the  department’s actions in these areas. In conclusion, these challenges are daunting but not insurmountable. The  Coast Guard continues to do an admirable job of adapting to its new  homeland security role through the hard work and dedication of its  people, and it has the management capability to address the  implementation issues discussed here as well. Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of  Homeland Security. Port Security: Nation Faces Formidable Challenges in Making New  Initiatives Successful.
Why GAO Did This Study

The Coast Guard is one of 22 agencies being placed in the new Department of Homeland Security. With its key roles in the nation's ports, waterways, and coastlines, the Coast Guard is an important part of enhanced homeland security efforts. But it also has non-security missions, such as search and rescue, fisheries and environmental protection, and boating safety. GAO has conducted a number of reviews of the Coast Guard's missions and was asked to testify about the Coast Guard's implementation challenges in moving to this newly created Department.

What GAO Found

The Coast Guard faces major challenges in effectively implementing its operations within the Department of Homeland Security. GAO has identified critical success factors for reorganizing and restructuring agencies, and its recent work in reviewing the Coast Guard has focused on challenges dealing with six of these factors--strategic planning, communications and partnership-building, performance management, human capital strategy, information management and technology, and acquisition management. The Coast Guard faces challenges in all of these areas. The difficulty of meeting these challenges is compounded because the Coast Guard is not just moving to a new parent agency: it is also substantially reinventing itself because of its new security role. Basically, the agency faces a fundamental tension in balancing its many missions. It must still do the work it has been doing for years in such areas as fisheries management and search and rescue, but now its resources are deployed as well in homeland security and even in the military buildup in the Middle East. The Coast Guard's expanded role in homeland security, along with its relocation in a new agency, have changed many of its working parameters, and its adjustment to this role remains a work in process. Much work remains. Some of the work is strategic in nature, such as the need to define new missions and redistribute resources to meet the wide range of missions. Others include accommodating a sudden surge of new positions or trying to ensure that its most ambitious acquisition project--the Deepwater Project--remains viable.