The Coast Guard has responsibilities that fall under two broad  missions—homeland security and non-homeland security. Overall Budget Request Is 3.3 Percent Higher than Previous Year’s

The Coast Guard’s budget request in fiscal year 2008 is $8.73 billion,  approximately $275 million, or 3.3 percent, more than in fiscal year 2007  (see fig. The Coast Guard’s budget request for homeland security missions  represents approximately 35 percent of the overall budget. No new funds have been requested for this initiative. In fiscal year 2006, the agency  narrowly missed performance targets for 3 programs—Search and Rescue,  Living Marine Resources, and Aids to Navigation. However, the Coast Guard’s performance on its non-homeland  security indicators has not changed substantially over the past 5 years. Framework for analyzing risk, readiness, and performance. Three  efforts are of note here—reorganizing shore-based forces into sector  commands, placing all deployable specialized forces under a single  nationwide command, and consolidating acquisitions management  programs. The goals of this  consolidation are to improve Coast Guard oversight of acquisitions, better  balance contracting officers and acquisition professionals among its major  acquisition projects, and address staff retention and shortage problems  associated with the acquisitions management program. Installation of equipment for the initial  phase of NAIS, an acquisition that is designed to allow the Coast Guard to  monitor and track vessels as far as 2,000 nautical miles off the U.S. coast,  is currently under way, but without changes to existing regulations, some  vessels will be able to avoid taking part in the system. First, the Coast Guard is still in the early phases of the  25-year Deepwater acquisition program and the potential for changes in  the program over such a lengthy period of time make it difficult to forecast  the ability of the Coast Guard to acquire future Deepwater assets  according to its published schedule. These performance problems have had operational consequences for the  Coast Guard. Specifically, in recent testimony, the Commandant of the  Coast Guard stated that the Coast Guard has taken the following actions:    multicrewing eight of the 110-foot patrol boats with crews from the   123-foot patrol boats that have been removed from service so that  patrol hours for these vessels can be increased;    deploying other Coast Guard vessels to assist in missions formerly  performed by the 123-foot patrol boats;    securing permission from the U.S. Navy to continue using three 179- foot cutters on loan from the Navy (these were originally to be returned  to the Navy in 2008) to supplement the Coast Guard’s patrol craft; and    compressing the maintenance and upgrades on the remaining 110-foot  patrol boats. Initial Deployment of Nationwide Automatic Identification System Is Under Way, with Decisions Still to Come about Extending Coverage to Additional Vessels

Outside Deepwater, one acquisition project included in the fiscal year 2008  budget is the Nationwide Automatic Identification System, a system  designed to of identify, track, and communicate with vessels bound for or  within U.S. waters and forwarding that information for additional analysis. We have examined two of these areas in recent work—vessels  for aids to navigation and domestic icebreaking activity, and vessels for  icebreaking in polar areas. More  than half of these assets have reached or will be approaching the end of  their designed service lives. GAO/RCED-99-6.
Why GAO Did This Study

The U. S. Coast Guard is a multimission agency responsible for maritime safety, security, and stewardship. It performs these missions, relating to homeland security and non-homeland security in U.S. ports and inland waterways, along the coasts, and on international waters. The President's budget request, including the request for the Coast Guard, was transmitted to Congress on February 5, 2007. This testimony, which is based on current and past GAO work, synthesizes the results of this work as it pertains to the following: budget requests and performance goals, organizational changes and related management initiatives, current acquisition efforts and challenges, and challenges related to performing traditional legacy missions.

What GAO Found

The Coast Guard's fiscal year 2008 budget request totals $8.7 billion, an increase of 3 percent over the enacted budget for fiscal year 2007 and a slowing of the agency's budget increases over the past 3 fiscal years. The Coast Guard expects to meet its performance goals in 6 of 11 mission areas in fiscal year 2006, down from 8 in 2005. Trends indicate increased homeland security activities have not prevented meeting non-homeland security goals. Two new reorganization efforts are under way. One creates a single command for all specialized deployable units, such as those for responding to pollution or terrorist incidents. However, experience with an effort to reorganize field units suggests there may be challenges in such matters as merging different operating approaches and addressing resource issues. The other effort merges the Coast Guard's various acquisition management efforts under a single Chief Acquisition Officer. The reorganization of acquisition management is in part a response to past troubled acquisition efforts. This change in the acquisition structure is too new to assess. Current major acquisitions include Deepwater for cutters and aircraft, the Rescue 21 communication system, and the National Automatic Identification System for vessel tracking. Deepwater and Rescue 21 have had schedule delays and performance reductions in the past, but the Coast Guard has been taking actions to improve oversight. Installation of equipment for the first phase of the National Automatic Identification System is under way, but the Coast Guard is still determining which types of vessels will have to participate. All three programs have also accumulated sizeable carryover balances of unspent moneys from previous years. Competing funding priorities have placed aging polar icebreakers and aids-to-navigation assets at risk. Many aids-to-navigation vessels are near the end of their service lives. The Coast Guard is exploring alternatives for replacement or extending their service. Similarly, high maintenance costs prompted the Coast Guard to take one of two Antarctic icebreakers out of service, increasing reliance on the remaining one.