The operational capacity of the Coast Guard has deteriorated due to a legacy fleet in poor condition, with the prospects for future capacity gaps all but assured, the Government Accountability Office says.

For a report (.pdf) dated July 31, auditors found abundant data that the legacy fleet of high- and medium-endurance cutters and patrol boats have mostly or totally missed Coast Guard targets for time free of major equipment problems from fiscal 2005 through fiscal 2011.

The 378-foot high endurance cutters in particular fell short, managing in those years to be without a major problem just on  average 44 percent of the time. High- and medium-endurance cutters are near the end of their service lives--or already past it, but without an immediate replacement due to an ongoing recapitalization program that's taken longer than expected.

Overall, ships in the legacy fleet were able to achieve 180,202 operational hours during fiscal 2011, 23 percent less than the 222,740 hours the Coast Guard said were necessary to achieve its mission. The high endurance cutters, again, proved the most problematic, with operational hours from fiscal 2005 through 2011 declining by about 32 percent.

Keeping the legacy fleet going is an expensive proposition. The report notes that in 2009 and 2010 the service spent about $200,000 per vessel to rebuild several high endurance cutter main diesel engines--but that some of those same engines broke down shortly afterward because other parts of the engine not included in the rebuild failed. Main diesel engine replacements for the high- and medium-endurance cutters may simply be too expensive in the current fiscal environment, the report says some Coast Guard officials said.

But, if the engines can't be replaced, the officials also said, the cutters will continue to fail at high rates until they're finally replaced by the new ships from the recapitalization program.

The service has taken actions to improve the condition of the legacy fleet, the GAO says, including almost completely refurbishing 17 (out of 41 total) patrol boats and generally replacing obsolete or maintenance-intensive equipment. All medium endurance cutters, for example will get a new propulsion control and monitoring system.

Nonetheless, cost pressure will create a near-term increase in the operational capacity gap for high endurance cutters and patrol boats, the report says. The service is set to retire the two high endurance cutters in worst condition in the coming fiscal year for projected savings of $17 million and won't extend a program to keep eight patrol boats on high tempo duty through the use of double crews. It will also retire three patrol boats in fiscal 2013.

Coast Guard officials say that delivery of the fourth planned National Security Cutter in fiscal 2014 and the fifth in fiscal 2016 will plug the high endurance cutter operational capacity gap, and the commissioning of seven additional Fast Response Cutters in fiscal 2013 will make up for lost patrol board capacity.

But auditors dispute that last assertion, projecting that despite the addition of seven FRCs, the service will have a capacity gap equivalent to the operational hours of 10 patrol boats. They also cast doubt on whether NSCs will indeed achieve 230 days a year away from homeport, since that figure depends on crew swapping--something the Coast Guard is backing off from doing due to worries about its difficulty and expense. If 230 hours is unachievable, then the Coast Guard will have to delay decommissioning the high endurance cutters or risk missing mission goals, the report says.

It's with the medium endurance cutter fleet that the GAO envisions serious problems, however. The Coast Guard increasingly uses its 27 medium endurance cutters to plug operational gaps created by the deteriorating high endurance cutters, but the medium cutters themselves are rapidly approaching, or have already passed, the end of their service lives. Their recapitalization program replacement will be the Offshore Patrol Cutters, but delays to the OPC program means that the Coast Guard can't build enough new ships to replace the medium cutters before they become inoperable. The GAO says that'll be the case, even assuming a Coast Guard estimate that the medium cutter upgrades underway now will extend each vessel's life for 15 years, a projection that even service officials told auditors is optimistic "and has no basis in firm engineering studies."

In order to keep the last medium endurance cutters operational until the final OPC is commissioned in fiscal 2033, one Coast Guard official told auditors the service would need to undertake another life extension project that would involve quadrupling annual depot-level maintenance funding.

For more:
- download the report, GAO-12-741 (.pdf)

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A new training course for airport security screening supervisors is meant to address employee misconduct hurtful to the Transportation Security Administration's public image, said Deputy Administrator John Halinski.

During an Aug. 1 House hearing, Halinski said TSA's plan is for all its screening supervisors to take the course within 18 months.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation security, said that timeline was a great improvement from the plans he had previously heard.

The training, known as Essentials of Supervising Screening Operations, will address how security officers interact with the public. It will also promote a culture of accountability and integrity, Halinski said.

In an earlier hearing on June 7, TSA Administrator John Pistole also touted ESSO. He said the course will teach supervisors their personal leadership strengths and weaknesses as well as ideal ways to communicate with people.

That will give supervisors a chance to improve their customer service skills, Pistole said.

In fall of 2011, TSA consolidated its training programs when it created its office of training and workforce engagement. Halinski said that office was a major step toward more accountability.

The ESSO training will take place at the Georgia headquarters of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

In addition to discussing TSA's issues related to customer service and employee misconduct, Halinski cast some doubt on the accuracy of the agency's public image. The media has reported some embellished allegations of misconduct, he said.

He also pointed out that much of TSA's criticism has come from bloggers and Internet commenters who benefit from anonymity.

TSA has tracked negative media reporting about the agency since 2009 and found that about 47 percent of the nearly 13,000 reports about TSA in the media were negative, Halinski said.

As for blogs, about 80 percent of their 5,000 stories about TSA in that time were negative.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimonies and webcast available)

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Following a late June violent and fast-moving storm that left an estimated 2.3 million Northern Virginia residents without 9-1-1 service for as many as 4 days, the Federal Communications Commission issued Aug. 1. a notice of inquiry seeking further information on its causes and effects.

Failures of the 9-1-1 system as a result of the fast-moving storm--which also killed 22 people and left 4.3 million without power for days, some for weeks--"also give rise to concerns and questions about the reliability and resiliency of our 9-1-1 communications networks nationwide," the FCC notice of inquiry states.

Among the questions the inquiry seeks to answer is whether deployment of Next Generation 9-1-1, which would incorporate Internet protocol into the 9-1-1 system framework, will improve reliability.

NG9-1-1, the inquiry notes, could create the ability to utilize a virtual public-safety answering point (i.e., the call center where emergency calls get answered). Today's PSAPs are very much brick-and-mortar affairs, but in a NG9-1-1- network, a call taker would be able to answer a 9-1-1 call from virtually any location.

For more:
- go to the FCC notice of inquiry

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At every stage in the acquisition process, the research arm of the Homeland Security Department should play a major role, the House Homeland Security Committee says in an Aug. 1 report.

DHS components do not make enough use of the Science & Technology Directorate, the report says. But S&T could help determine if technology is mature enough to proceed through the acquisition process, and that could keep DHS from repeating some costly acquisition failures from recent years.

The committee-passed fiscal 2012 DHS authorization bill (H.R. 3116) called for S&T to come up with a formal process to evaluate a technology's maturity and reduce its risks.

That bill, though, would bar S&T from applying such a process to information technology or radiological or nuclear detection and countermeasure technologies.

The committee also recommends in the report that DHS keep looking for opportunities to co-opt existing Defense Department technology with homeland security applications.

DHS might benefit from a more formal agreement that would give it a centralized point of contact at DoD with whom DHS could discuss technologies and research, the report adds.

As examples of DHS's acquisition problems, the report cites the department's canceled SBInet border security technology and Customs and Border Protection's purchase and storage of more steel than it needed for border fencing.

SBInet would have cost $1.9 billion to acquire, or 564 percent more than the initial projected cost, according to a Government Accountability Office estimate. CBP wasted $69 million mismanaging its steel acquisition, the DHS office of inspector general said.

For more:
- download the report, "Initiatives Needed to Correct Weaknesses in the Department of Homeland Security's Acquisition and Contracting Practices" (.pdf)
- go to the THOMAS page for H.R. 3116

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A recent increase in border agent corruption cases has strained the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, said Charles Edwards, the acting IG, during an Aug. 1 House hearing.

The Customs and Border Patrol workforce grew 34 percent from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2009, compared to the OIG workforce's 6 percent increase. Every year since 2009, Edwards' internal request for 50 more investigators has failed to make the president's budget proposal, he said.

Meanwhile, the OIG's 219 criminal investigators have faced a 95 percent increase in complaints against CBP employees since fiscal 2004. That includes a 25 percent increase just from fiscal 2010 to 2011.

Additionally, OIG has initiated 90 percent more investigations involving CBP officials since 2004, according to figures that Edwards provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on government organization, efficiency and financial management.

Those increases stem from CBP's increased workforce only in part. David Aguilar, CBP's acting commissioner, told the subcommittee they're also a sign of CBP's success securing the border.

Criminals "can no longer go around us, below us, over us, because we're in the water, we're in the air...now they come at us, directly towards our employees, trying to corrupt us," Aguilar said.

Corruption investigations tend to be complex and can take a long time, Edwards noted.

To ease the workload, Edwards and the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreed in April to transfer 370 OIG cases involving CBP and ICE employees to ICE's office of professional responsibility.

ICE has since transferred about one-third of the cases to CBP's office of internal affairs and closed about 60 cases.

Because OIG has oversight of DHS components, it requires periodic reports about the status of the transferred cases.

Subcommittee Chairman Todd Platts (R-Penn.) noted his concern that when an agency investigates its own cases, there may appear to be a conflict of interest. He urged the officials to emphasize internal controls.

Despite the increased workload, no case is being unattended or pending investigation. "We have this under control," Edwards said.

While the OIG technically has 1,591 open investigations as of July 15, Edwards said that figure is misleading.

His office still classifies cases as open after a U.S. Attorney's office accepts them for prosecution. Criminal cases can stay open for years through prosecution, sentencing and appeals.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimonies and webcast available)

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