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By Lieutenant Commander John N. Leonard, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve
Throughout its history, the Coast Guard has absorbed other coastal services when functions began to overlap. But the Rational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has eluded such consolidation so far. Creating a new Ocean Survey Corps |Uay just let the Coast Guard take NOAA ‘n tow.
In its landmark 1969 report, Our Nation and the Sea, the Stratton Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources sought to streamline the jumped federal ocean bureaucracy by consolidating most a§encies responsible for the nation’s maritime efforts into °ne major “Department of the Oceans.’ This later became the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- *'°n (NOAA). Two primary goals of the commission were to make NOAA, like NASA before it, an independent agency reporting directly to the President and to include tfle U.S. Coast Guard. The object was to create an organisation large enough to represent diverse ocean interests, encourage development, and compete for funds within the government, untethered to any cabinet department polices. The Coast Guard, together with the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey, would provide the operational seagoing CaPabilities needed by the agencies under the NOAA umbrella.
But “the fish don’t vote,” and politics-as-usual triumphed. After chasing smugglers for every Secretary of 'he Treasury since Alexander Hamilton in 1790, the Coast Guard had just been transferred by President Lyndon J°hnson in 1967 to serve as the maritime component in his lew Department of Transportation. Even before he revived the Stratton Commission report on his way home to ^exas, LBJ was in no mood to move the Coast Guard again, and this view persisted into the administration of Richard Nixon. So in summer 1970, when President hhxon signed Executive Reorganization Plan No. 4, he endorsed the creation of NOAA, without what was supposed to be its major chunk of bureaucratic mass. Instead of an independent agency of nearly 55,000 people, the new organization included only about 15,000 employees, with no charter from Congress. The Coast & Geodetic Surveyors, a commissioned officer corps of seagoing civil engineers created in 1917, became the NOAA Corps, the seventh and smallest of the uniformed services.
Twenty years later, the U.S. government still lacks an effective policy to coordinate and manage multiple ocean resources. Federal maritime agencies are as fragmented as ever, and NOAA, placed by Nixon for political reasons under the Department of Commerce, is in worse budget shape than the Coast Guard has ever been under the Department of Transportation. The exclusion of the Coast Guard from an independent NOAA has hampered both agencies’ political clout and greatly diminished the efficiency of federal ocean science and engineering services. Today, in separate cabinet departments, the Coast Guard maintains the nation’s navigation aids, but NOAA ships provide the hydrographic survey information and the charts. And both agencies toss about annually in stormy budgetary seas. Partly from a lack of a politically unified constituency of ocean advocates, the number of high- endurance Coast Guard cutters has declined since 1966 by two thirds, from 36 to 12, and the nation’s former fleet of eight polar icebreakers has dwindled to two. NOAA’s former fleet of nearly 30 ships has aged and also shrunk by nearly a third, and no viable replacement plans are currently in place for the vessels and icebreakers needed as the nation faces a new millennium.
Since the first 10 revenue cutters began operating in 1790, the oldest continuous seagoing service has absorbed over the years five marine bureaus, as their responsibilities overlapped and became interdependent. The original Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Lifesaving Service in 1915 and became the Coast Guard, which in World War II absorbed the Lighthouse Service and the Bureaus of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection. Since then, the service has drawn on these diverse backgrounds to develop its multi-mission capability. Before joining NOAA’s National Ocean Service in 1970, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic
Survey had managed to avoid these mergers. The NOAA Corps should thus be viewed by the Coast Guard as the sixth bureau, “the one that got away,” since it has so far escaped the fate of all the other federal maritime operating agencies.
Today, the 439 officer-scientists of the NOAA Corps, led by six flag officers, operate a fleet of 23 ships and 17 aircraft in support of all NOAA mapping, weather, and oceanographic activities. In recent fiscal years, at least four of these ships have been laid up under budget constraints. The corps traces its history to 1807, when President Thomas Jefferson commissioned a survey of the coast to develop nautical charts that would ensure safe shipping. Renamed the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey in 1878, during its first 110 years, it relied primarily on transferred Army and Navy officers to manage and conduct hydrographic programs and to operate its vessels. These vessels often came on loan from the Revenue Cutter Service.
The establishment in 1917 of a corps of seagoing officer-surveyors continued a practice commonly followed in the early years of this country of offering commissions from the President to knowledgeable men who could fill an immediate void wherever the U.S. government perceived a need. Frontiersmen Jim Bridger and Kit Carson thus took Army commissions in return for leading settlers across the Rocky Mountains. And in World War I, civilian leaders in the powerful Department of Commerce called
for establishment of the Coast & Geodetic Corps. They were tired of having their ships and officers, on loan from other services, called away in time of national conflict’ ; They wanted their own. Today, NOAA remains, along with the Public Health Service, a uniformed service apart from the armed forces unless directed by the President, i
Over time, numerous federal bureaus, staffed with civilians, have sprung to life, and many have floated around Washington, D.C. for much of their history. They eventually gather together and win the political status of a real home when a new cabinet department forms, usually response to popular sentiment or extraordinary events. So it was with the formation of the Department of Transportation, and with the agencies that joined together to create I the Department of Energy during the Jimmy Carter administration.
Since most bureaucracies are inherently inefficient, in recent years the U.S. government has encouraged the pri' vate sector to fill public sector needs, but these businesses often operate under various federal contracts with taxpayers’ money. In the corporate world, new industries start with a multitude of companies that gradually consolidate, , as the strongest and best-run businesses survive. During 1 the Reagan era, government budget cutters and privatization advocates quickly discovered that this axiom does not necessarily apply to the government. An immense political and bureaucratic inertia makes it very difficult to shut
Name | Ships of the NOAA Fleet Displacement Commissioned | Base | |
Oceanographer (R-101) | 4,033 tons | 13 July 1966 | inactive |
Discoverer (R-102) | 4,033 tons | 29 April 1967 | Seattle |
Malcolm Baldridge (R-103) | 2,963 tons | 10 August 1970 | Miami |
Miller Freeman (R-223) | 1,920 tons | 1974 | Seattle |
Oregon 11 (R-332) | 952 tons | August 1967 | Pascagoula |
Albatross IV | 1,089 tons | May 1963 | inactive |
Townsend Cromwell (R-443) | 652 tons | July 1963 | Honolulu |
David Starr Jordan (R-444) | 993 tons | January 1966 | San Diego |
Delaware II (R-445) | 758 tons | October 1968 | Woods Hole |
Chapman (R-446) | 520 tons | July 1980 | Pascagoula |
John N. Cobb (R-552) | 250 tons | February 1950 | inactive |
Murre II (R-663) | 295 tons | Laid down 1943 | Juneau |
Surveyor (S-132) | 3,440 tons | 30 April 1960 | Seattle |
Fairweather (S-220) | 1,800 tons | 10 February 1968 | inactive |
Rainier (S-221) | 1,800 tons | 10 February 1968 | Seattle |
Mt. Mitchell (S-222) | 1,800 tons | 23 March 1968 | Norfolk |
Pierce (S-328) | 907 tons | 6 May 1963 | inactive |
Whiting (S-329) | 907 tons | 8 July 1963 | Norfolk |
McArthur (S-330) | 995 tons | 15 December 1966 | Seattle |
Davidson (S-331) | 995 tons | 10 March 1967 | inactive |
Ferrell (S-492) | 360 tons | 4 June 1968 | Norfolk |
Rude (S-590) | 220 tons | March 1967 | Norfolk |
Heck (S-591) | 220 tons | March 1967 | Norfolk |
Adapted from Combat Fleets of the World 199011991, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990) |
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Says NOAA should not be operating its own navy— former NOAA Administrator Dr. William E. Evans.
Recognizes the Coast Guard’s unique capabilities— current NOAA Administrator Dr. John A. Knauss.
Unhappy with agency's abilities in the marine environment— El’A Administrator William K. Reilly.
down even the smallest of federal agencies, even after they have outlived their usefulness.
The first green wave of environmentalism in 19691970 inspired the formation of both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and NOAA by executive order. Put as early as 1972 it had become obvious that, because the Stratton Commission’s recommendations for NOAA were not fully implemented, the agency would never be the strong leader in the ocean arena that its creators had envisioned. Since then many excellent but politically un- cxecutable reorganization proposals have appeared, with most featuring the Coast Guard as the icing on any centralized new NOAA cake. The sheer number of major reorganization plans put forth by thoughtful ocean policy experts since the Stratton Commission’s exhaustive endeavor hammers home the general perception in the ocean community that the present federal structure is inadequate. The luck of a “Secretary of the Oceans,” with direct access to ihe President from the cabinet level, jurisdictional over- *ap, and duplication of effort have all been common themes.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill precipitated a second green wave of environmentalism, which the country is still riding. Congress followed suit in passing legislation that elevated EPA to the Department of Environment. And it also has given the relatively small and fragmented ocean constituency another chance finally to get its organizational house in order. The confluence of natural disasters has the political planets lining up in its favor. Former NOAA administrator Dr. William E. Evans has stated that as an air-sea science agency, NOAA should not be operating its own navy. The National Ocean Service’s charting, geodesy, and research support functions properly belong in the Coast Guard. Current NOAA head Dr. John A. Knauss was a member of the Stratton Commission, a group of distinguished scientists whose work is still reared by the ocean community and who recognized the Coast Guard’s unique capabilities. EPA Administrator William K. Reilly has stated that he is not happy with his agency’s current abilities in the marine environment. Hence, President George Bush’s decision to support the legislation lifting EPA to cabinet-level status also represents a golden opportunity for the Coast Guard—if the service has the courage and the will to seize it.
Since the Vietnam era, the Coast Guard has often tended to be somewhat schizophrenic about its law en- forcement/coastal defense missions, as opposed to its marine safety/environmental protection duties. During the 1980s however, extreme budget pressures forced the service to concentrate more on drug interdiction at the expense of marine science, despite a spate of environmental disasters. Until very recently there seemed to be few signs of a slowdown in this trend. But the President’s desire to have a Secretary of the Environment in his cabinet demonstrates a change in attitude. This year will be remembered by oceanographers as the opening of a new era, one in which ocean research funding stopped being driven largely by Cold War fears and started being driven by fears for the global environment. So, with the federal budget deficit and the current need for greater government efficiency firmly in mind, it seems the time has come once again, as it did in 1915, World War II, and in 1970, to begin a reorganization of federal marine agencies. But this time, a functional, politically plausible approach is necessary.
Strategic Planning and Reserve Capabilities Study (SPARCS ’89), by Rear Admiral Bennet S. Sparks, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, has urged the Coast Guard to act boldly to adopt a corporate-style strategic planning and marketing process with a horizon stretching into the 21st century, and to become a “total force” of actives and reserves like other DoD services. The study concludes that the Coast Guard should position itself as a national security leader—Guardians of the Seas in all senses: military, environmental, and economic. Thus, in its bicentennial year, the service should seize the initiative and drive the forthcoming federal environmental organizational discussion by leading the fight to absorb the National Ocean Service, while the rest of NOAA—the weather bureau. National Marine Fisheries Service, and other science functions—should join EPA and become part of the new Department of Environment.
There is no place for an earth system agency such as NOAA in a Commerce Department that is rapidly evolving into a Department of International Trade and Industry. Just as the Coast Guard served as the maritime counterweight to the Federal Aviation Administration during formation of the Transportation Department, NOAA must serve as the air-sea balance for the land-oriented EPA in the new world of environmental protection. Then, when the marine arm of the new department needs to go to sea, the Coast Guard will take it. The Coast Guard already works closely with EPA and NOAA, but future needs of large-scale scientific studies of global change, increased exploration in the polar regions, and proper regulation and defense of the huge U.S. exclusive economic and maritime defense zones have set the stage for formation somewhat of a Coast Guard counterpart to the Army’s Corps of Engineers.
With this model, NOAA’s officers, ships, and aircraft should be integrated into the Coast Guard, forming the nucleus of an Ocean Survey Corps within the service, replacing the Coast Guard Office of Navigation Safety and Waterway Service. As the world’s 12th largest naval force, the Coast Guard already has a full infrastructure for ship and aircraft support. More than 100 Coast Guard buoy tenders, icebreakers, and NOAA ships would become part of the survey corps. But these unarmed vessels, incapable of frontline naval warfare, should be treated as support ships for ocean survey, a breed apart from the main Coast Guard white fleet of law enforcement/coastal defense cutters that police the exclusive economic and maritime defense zones. Survey corps ships should be operated as research vessels by dedicated former NOAA Corps and Coast Guard officers and enlisted technicians, performing the oceanic service survey and science data collection functions worldwide. They should be operated entirely by military personnel, but only at manning levels necessary to accomplish these peacetime jobs, without any wartime crew redundancy and with plenty of room to support civilian or military researchers. Because of lengthy wartime steaming requirements, U.S. Navy ship staffs are normally twice as large as they need to be to operate a vessel, while major classes of Coast Guard cutters have roughly one and a half times that number. Ocean Survey Corps ships should have small complements, similar to merchant vessels. For special deployments, mobilization, and emergencies, crews would then be augmented by Coast Guard or Navy reservists, Law Enforcement Detachments, and other modular units as necessary.
The Coast Guard’s position in the Transportation Department is improving, and this proposed restructuring consolidates the nation’s non-DoD maritime operations to provide more of the critical mass envisioned by the Stratton Commission and certainly needed in the era of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. It brings together the nation’s hydrographic and navigation information organizations, and does away with the “union shop” frustration of NOAA Corps officers, who must routinely rearrange daily survey schedules at sea or pay overtime to the unionized merchant seamen who crew their ships. The survey corps also seeks to reduce the oversized crews of Coast Guard polar icebreakers—which have become essentially chartered research vessels—allowing more laboratory and storage space to make them more responsive to the research scientists they serve. The crew complement of buoy tenders should decrease as well, helping to silence those who scream for privatization of that function.
Exploration of new frontiers under military auspices is a tradition as old as mankind; the problem lies in adapting a military organization to meet the needs of exploring the exclusive economic zone and polar regions into the 21st Century. Currently, efficient shipboard data collection is simply not possible with the arcane organizations of NOAA ships and Coast Guard polar icebreaker crews. And the Coast Guard will never get the support for future large-scale construction of new icebreakers and buoy tenders unless they engage in some degree of perestroika in their fleet. Neither unionized seamen nor wartime complements of military personnel can perform research and other peacetime jobs at seas as effectively as a streamlined, dedicated group of marine technicians, engineers, and scientists. The concept of an Ocean Survey Corps fleet provides a more stable and efficient operating environment for NOAA ships, personnel, and Coast Guard icebreakers, while simultaneously putting more vessels at 1 sea to deter drug smugglers. Rather than chase drug vessels however, survey corps research ships engaged in mapping or survey could simply radio the suspect’s position to another Coast Guard patrol boat or aircraft to make the interdiction. An Ocean Survey Corps would also facilitate better coordination and funding of military research and development by the Coast Guard and the Navy so that they could focus their efforts on the strategic implications of ocean development in the maritime defense and exclusive economic zones.
Career NOAA officers would be welcome and better off in the Coast Guard. The NOAA Corps leadership has already identified an urgent need for more multidisciplinary employment of their platforms and an expanded emphasis on military readiness and drug interdiction activities with the other services. Taking the anachronistic idea of the NOAA Corps by itself, it seems ludicrous for this country to continue to maintain a quasi-military group of almost 450 commissioned officers—all chiefs with no real in- dians—adrift in the middle of a civilian agency. Civil research should be supported by the university fleet and private charter vessels, while the Navy and a multi-mission Coast Guard-Ocean Survey Corps support operations with broad national security implications. With 450 more officer billets, the Coast Guard can justify a proportional increase in enlisted personnel for an eventual goal of a 50,000-person active-duty force.
Above all, any new plan must be politically feasible. This proposal should fit that bill, and pursuing it is a small first step in heating up the federal ocean reorganization debate that has simmered since the 1960s. With the benefit of twenty years’ hindsight, it is obvious that the Stratton Commission’s report had miserable political timing. But public interest in the oceans and environment from that era is resurging, and the time is here to dust off that report and reopen the great debate in the Bush administration. The lesson to be learned is that any national ocean policy “window of opportunity” that opens in the early 1990s should not be squandered again.
Lieutenant Commander Leonard is finishing a doctorate in Geological Oceanography at Texas A&M University. He also earned an M.S. degree there while pursuing seafloor geotechnical research with the Ocean Drilling Program since 1986. His reserve assignment is as readiness planning officer for Maritime Defense Zone Subsector Galveston. He is a 1977 Coast Guard Academy graduate. While on active duty he served ashore at Marine Safety Office New Orleans, and worked closely with NOAA fisheries and scientific personnel on several assignments at sea on board the cutters Morgenthau (WHEC-722) and Westwind (WAGB-281).