Segment 2 Of 2     Previous Hearing Segment(1)

SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS    
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OVERSIGHT ON THE COAST GUARD'S SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSION

Wednesday, November 3, 1999
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Washington, D.C.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wayne T. Gilchrest [chairman of the subcommittee] Presiding.
    Mr. GILCHREST. The Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation will come to order this morning. The oversight hearing we are holding today concerns one of the most important responsibilities of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard conducts more than 40,000 search and rescue cases annually. In 1998, the Coast Guard saved more than 4,000 lives. We must make sure that the Coast Guard is prepared to respond whenever mariners are in danger.
    Unfortunately, the Coast Guard's search and rescue communications equipment has deficiencies that must be corrected as soon as possible. And we as a Congress take that enormously seriously. We must move forward immediately with the Coast Guard's modernization of the National Distress System. I encourage the Coast Guard to consider available off-the-shelf technology to the greatest extent feasible so that we can provide essential services to the maritime public.
    Also I encourage the Coast Guard to realistically assess their manpower needs, especially the needs for additional search and rescue personnel, and send the results of that assessment to the subcommittee. I believe that we have reached a critical shortage of experienced Coast Guard personnel in vital Coast Guard mission areas. This is a problem in the search and rescue area and in Coast Guard operations generally.
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    I would like to commend the Coast Guard personnel who risk their lives on a daily basis to respond to calls to help mariners the best way they can with the equipment and the technology and the know-how that they have. I also want to offer my sincere—we want to offer our sincere sympathy to Mrs. Cornett on the tragic loss that she has experienced.
    Mrs. Cornett, I appreciate, we appreciate, in a very profound way that you have agreed to come up here this morning to testify before this committee, to share with us your feelings so that we may take that information and pursue the policy that will change the incidents of the past so that they never happen again.
    And we are here this morning to make—to ensure that the information we gather today and tomorrow and in the weeks ahead will be sound, the data we select will be good information, and that we as a Congress will use every ounce of our strength to ensure that that the improvements that have been recommended by a number of different agencies, including the Coast Guard, that the training, the equipment, the advantaged technology will all be employed and in place as quickly as is humanly possible.
    This will not be a political fight. This it not be a partisan fight. This will not be a disagreement with the White House. This is not be a disagreement with OMB. This will be a strategy that we will correct any past judgments, any past problems with the appropriations process, with getting the right kind of technical instrument improvements that are now available so that we can move forward as quickly as possible.
    Finally I do want to commend the Coast Guard, especially all those young men that are out there trying to do a very difficult job under very trying circumstances in various places around the world, for the fine job that they have done and continue to do.
    On that note I will yield to the gentleman from Mississippi Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by saying that I am filling in for Representative DeFazio. He is handling a very important piece of legislation on the House floor, and we expect him back shortly, so I would ask that his statement be included in the record.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Without objection.
    [Mr. DeFazio's statement follows:]

    [insert here]

    Mr. TAYLOR. Mrs. Cornett, I also, along with the Chairman, want to welcome you and extend my sympathies. As someone who has both been a search and rescue boat skipper for the Coast Guard and approached Charleston in a boat at night from the ocean without a chart, when I read the account of what happened to your family, I can certainly in my mind's eye see it happening. And as the father of what used to be little kids and some still are, and someone who spends a lot of time on the water, I really want to express my greatest sympathies, but in fairness to the Coast Guard, for those who have not been to Charleston, I do think it is important to note that if I am not mistaken, three or four rivers empty into the ocean at Charleston in addition to the intracoastal waterway in addition to the ocean being out there.
    So for many of us who live on a bay and a river and the thought being why didn't you just run out there and look, in fairness to them, I think the public should know that there are a lot of areas to look in Charleston. It is just not a matter of walking out an a deck with a set of binoculars, because there is a heck of a lot of people, a heck of a lot of places where that unanswered call could have been without further identification.
    But in agreement with what my Chairman had to say, obviously I have got to believe that the technology exists to help locate a call like that. And hopefully some good will come of this tragedy, and hopefully the Congress of the United States will find that technology and appropriate the funds so we can prevent this sort of thing in the future, because again, having been a search and rescue boat skipper, I realize the Coast Guard cannot be everywhere at once, but we need them where they need to be on a timely basis.
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    So thank you for coming today. I can assure you I am going to work with the Chairman. We want to see that some good comes of all of this. But as a father and a fellow boater, I certainly want to extend my sympathies.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. LoBiondo. Mr. Baird.
    Ms. Cornett, one again, thank you very much for coming. We look forward to your testimony, ma'am. You may begin.

TESTIMONY OF LIBBY CORNETT

    Ms. CORNETT. I find your words to be words of encouragement. I never thought that I would be here today. I don't really want to be here, but I am here because I must be here. And I am just speaking from my heart and from the hearts of Bobby and Didi Herd, who lost their son in this, this terrible, terrible accident. And I am here, and I hope that my words will have an impact today that things will be changed. You are the people that have the power to do that.
    There is a real need for that. The work that the National Transportation Safety Board has done, I have found them to be a team, highly qualified team, well trained. It is just a mass resource of expertise, and the recommendations that have been made certainly need to be made. But it is—one word that concerns me here, and it is the word ''recommendations.'' I would like to see the word changed or substituted from recommendations to mandates. I think that—I don't know what led Mike to come upon the path that led Mike to the Charleston jetties. I don't know what happened out there. Mike was a competent sailor and father who loved his children very much.
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    Mr. COBLE. Mr. Chairman, would you have Ms. Cornett pull the mike a little closer? I can hardly hear her.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you.
    Ms. CORNETT. But I do know that they could have been saved, that they did not have to die there. I think that performance is a direct reflection of—any infrastructure or any entity is a reflection of their—of themselves. Performance is our ultimate measurement tool that we have to evaluate, to see if things are done right. It is very clear and it is very evident to everyone that this, the performance, was not there.
    The search and rescue systems that are in place, I have read through most of the guidelines and the protocol. They are in place. There are even checks and balances that are included in this to see that—to catch human errors, because we are all human, we can all make mistakes. However, it failed, it totally broke down.
    These are my concerns. We have—my main concern is that who is going to see that these things are done that are already in place? Who is going to monitor; who is going to oversee that this operation is run efficiently and that the performances are evaluated? Who is going to ensure that a coffee pot is not going to be located outside the operation center? Who is going to see that someone that has a very critical role and job and duty to perform as a radio watchstander is not sitting there alone for 12 hours? Who is going to see that one gets a cup of coffee out of the room and doesn't hear the Mayday.
    I know that the equipment needs to be updated, and I am very glad to know that the Congress has appropriated already $16 million towards upgrading this over a period of 5 years. I would like to see that time shortened. I think 5 years is a very long time for that to take place. But I also would like for everyone to know that it sounds as though that there was no equipment there at all that had the ability to play back the transmission. The equipment was there. Granted it wasn't state-of-the-art, up-to-date equipment that needs to be in place, but it could have been played back. As I understand it, all that needed to be done was to pop another tape into another machine to continue recording oncoming calls, push a button, rewind. It was 4 seconds.
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    Who is going to see that the watchstanders log in these calls? Who is going to see that the watchstanders report to the operations duty officer as they should? Who is going to see that the watchstanders have the analytical and the critical thinking skills that are needed? They are given a great power. They are given the power of discretion. This needs to be taken very, very, very seriously, and had the guidelines and procedures that are set in place now and in the search and rescue system had been adhered to, they would not have died, I know that.
    It torments me every day to think that about my husband and my babies and Bobby Lee were out there for several hours, and they were on the Coast Guard's front doorstep. Even if a search and rescue at the time in a timely manner had been mounted, they were right in the jetties. I wonder how did they feel. Did they think help was coming? Because Paul and Daniel, we had all believed that when you needed help, the Coast Guard was there to help. Did they still believe that? When the ship passed through the jetties right by them, and as they saw all the bright lights of the ship, they felt the power of the wake from the ship, and they cried out for help and were heard, did they still think someone was coming to rescue them? And when they saw the boat coming out with the searchlight and the harbor pilot looking, they saw the light looking for them, they just didn't go back far enough. And then they saw them turn around and leave.
    And how could the Coast Guard tell me that there were no Mayday calls, when, in fact, there were? How could the Coast Guard 4 months later fly out to my home and ask me if I could identify a voice on a tape? It was Daniel's, my baby Daniel crying for help. It haunts me that those were the last words that I heard Daniel speak.
    Why? And why is today the Coast Guard the same size as it was in 1963, with roughly 35,000 active duty members? And why does Admiral Terry Cross think that most recreational boaters would be alarmed to learn how fragile the link in the search and rescue really is? That needs to be changed, and it needs to be changed now.
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    Again, the recommendations that were made by the NTSB need to become mandated. I don't know, I don't know how they can be—you know how to do that. Shortly after this happened, I heard on my local radio station a recruitment tape that had been issued by the Coast Guard and, I guess, sent to various radio stations for recruitment. And I heard them say, if you would like an exciting job and be involved in rescuing and saving lives, contact the Coast Guard. But I think we have all found out—or it has been to me and, I know, many people—that it has been a shock and a surprise to learn that the Coast Guard has no duty to rescue. But should they not have a duty to do their best to try to rescue?
    One person should not have that sole discretionary power without receiving some proper and adequate training to be able to do that. I am very concerned to see that who is going to have or who does have the overall responsibility to see that the operations of the rescue—search and rescue system are run efficiently. That is what needs to be changed.
    And I appreciate your words and to know that you also feel as I do, that you don't ever want this to ever happen again. I was very concerned when I did learn that in the summer of '98 there were other lives that were lost off of Alligator Point in Florida. As I understand, they did have the coordinate points in this particular case, but they still all lost their lives. This should not happen. Whatever we need to do to change the laws to see that this doesn't happen again.
    We are hearing a great deal about standards and accountability today. We hear about it in our schools and our education, and we are wanting to see that happen. I want to see that happen with the Coast Guard also, that there are standards, and that there is some accountability, and to see that the standards are carried out.
    And I guess I will now say thank you for listening to me, the opportunity to have this input, and I hope, I hope that I have found the right words that will have some impact upon you.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mrs. Cornett. Your words, I think, have had a profound impact on us here this morning. Your testimony has, might I say, galvanized this issue for us like no other person could have. We deal here in Washington, each of the Members, with a myriad of issues, some very important, some trivial. But there is an enormous amount of paper that comes across our desks every single day from the space station, to Kosovo, to insurance reform, to North Korea, to paving streets, building bridges, dealing with school funding and, of course, military policy, and today in particular the Coast Guard.
    Your efforts here this morning are profound and enlightening and provide us with a new sense of urgency to prioritize some of the myriad of issues that each of us handles, and we will work as a team to ensure you, ma'am, that we, as well as the Coast Guard, as well as the National Transportation Safety Board, to make sure that the oversight of these kinds of activities is done efficiently and competently and that the resources are available to ensure the best training in the world and the best equipment in the world so this tragic incident and others like it will never happen again. I thank you very much for your most informative and sensitive testimony.
    Ms. CORNETT. Thank you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Ms. Cornett, I again want to thank you for being here. I wish we could change what happened, but we can't. As I mentioned, I guess I have a little bit of an advantage in having been on both sides of this equation, having skippered a boat for the Coast Guard and realized that just the harsh reality that the Coast Guard cannot be everywhere at once.
    There are a heck of a lot more recreational boats out there than the Coast Guard, and as a boat owner, and knowing every other boat owner that has just about every safety device in the world out there if you're willing to pay for them, like EPIRBs, like autoinflating life rafts, and just the very human tendency of all of us to buy those things that we are going to use every day and not to buy the things sometimes you—in order for the frills you pass up, the things like the EPIRBs and the self-inflating rafts.
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    I am just curious do you know what an EPIRB is? Emergency radio beacon.
    Ms. CORNETT. Yes.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Did your boat have one?
    Ms. CORNETT. No, it did not.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Was there a dinghy or a life raft on board? I am just trying to get all this straight in my mind.
    Ms. CORNETT. No, this boat came about as—that was purchased did not have a dinghy or a life raft on it. The whole trip, the whole journey was to have been done in the intracoastal waterway, never any offshore legs.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.
    Ms. CORNETT. And it was being moved to our friend's marina in Orange Park, Florida, to take family outings and sailings.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Did your husband have a cellular phone on board?
    Ms. CORNETT. No.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Because again, I know from experience that every Coast Guard search and rescue also has that.
    Did it have a CB radio on board?
    Ms. CORNETT. No CB radio.
    Mr. TAYLOR. But it did have a VHF.
    Ms. CORNETT. Yes, it did.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I was just curious about those things, and again, I extend as a father my sympathies, sadness that this happened, and in my mind's eye certainly see it happened, having approached that jetty at night, which is often submerged at high tide. I guess only from experience we didn't hit it. And I could certainly see how it could happen, and I am very sorry that it did happen.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
    We have a vote, so we have a little more—we have somewhat less than 10 more minutes to ask any questions that we might have.
    Mr. Coble.
    Mr. COBLE. Ms. Cornett, it is good to have you with us. I am sorry for your loss. Oftentimes you know here, Ms. Cornett, we get into political battles. Republican blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans, and the truth about it is probably both of us oftentimes must share some of the blame. And I am applying 20/20 hindsight here, Ms. Cornett, and that is easy to do, I will admit, but it appears what limited information I have about this, that maybe your husband failed to adequately prepare and/or respond to the known risks of going into this sea voyage, number one, and the Coast Guard's response may have been substandard as well. Would you want to comment on my conclusion?
    Ms. CORNETT. Yes, I would. We have had a lot of experience sailing. Mike was a very competent sailor in his abilities. He was a very good navigator. But in hindsight as well, I wish I could go back and change time, but I can't. However, I would really like for the focus to be here today is the performance of the Coast Guard. I know that everyone can learn from this also. There are several things that boaters can have on board. But the—but I don't want the fact that my family did not have to die, I don't want that to get lost here and focus on the inadequacies as they may be perceived by my husband. Mistakes were made, but let's don't stop at individual mistakes that were made.
    I think what needs to be focused upon today is simply the performance of the Coast Guard. It is very clear that they did not follow their own policies and procedures. Many opportunities were missed to save them. Even had a rescue boat been launched, as I said, I know it has been brought out and said many times that they could have been anywhere, but they weren't. They were right there inside the jetties. Anyone would have found them. I just don't want to lose sight of that.
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    Mr. COBLE. Thank you. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Coble.
    Mr. Baird.
    Mr. BAIRD. No.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Oberstar.
    Mr. OBERSTAR. Nothing. Thank you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Ms. Cornett, thank you very much for your testimony and for being brave and courageous yourself in coming up here to talk to us. And you did a fine job this morning. Thank you very much.
    Ms. CORNETT. Thank you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. The hearing will recess for 15 or so minutes until we finish our votes. Thank you.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. GILCHREST. The hearing will come to order. And our next panel will be the Honorable Mr. Hall of the National Transportation Safety Board, and thank you very much for coming this morning, Mr. Hall. We know how busy you are now with the incident that just occurred off of Rhode Island.
    And, Admiral Loy, we also appreciate your attendance here this morning. And we know how busy you are because both your people are involved in the tragic incident in the North Atlantic.
    But thank you very much. We look forward to your testimony.
    Admiral Loy, you may go first.

TESTIMONY OF JIM HALL, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, ACCOMPANIED BY MARJORIE MURTAGH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MARINE SAFETY; AND ADMIRAL JAMES M. LOY, COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD
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    Admiral LOY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first just make a reference to Mrs. Cornett's testimony. I don't know that there are words that could even begin to articulate or comprehend her loss, but hers are about as eloquent as I have ever heard. And our challenge is to learn lessons from this tragic experience and prevent—.
    Mr. COBLE. My hearing is not what it used to be, Admiral. Would you mind pulling that mike a little closer? Thank you, sir.
    Admiral LOY. We need to press on and learn lessons from this tragic experience and improve as necessary the system that we have in place so as to prevent reoccurrence.
    Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for this opportunity to testify before you today on the Coast Guard's search and rescue mission. It is timely. It is obviously very appropriate for a review of this mission to be undertaken given the events of just this past weekend when once again the attention of our country and much of the world is focused on activities in the waters in the North Atlantic off Cape Cod.
    As we watch these all-too-familiar events unfold, calls in the middle of the night, orders to deploy cutters, aircraft and boats, Coast Guard men and women setting out to sea, I am certain that the thoughts of many people turn to the JFK tragedy of just this past summer, but mine turned rather to TWA 800, 3 years ago, a few miles to the south in the waters off Montauk, New York. And of that event, a local reporter wrote to us, and I quote, on the night of July 17th, I experienced both the horror and high privilege of accompanying the crew of the Montauk Coast Guard 41-foot boat to the scene of the crash of TWA 800. Under the saddest, most appalling circumstances anyone should ever have to see, the crew of the 41 and the rest of the Coast Guard's assets on scene did their job in the most professional manner. Your Coast Guardsmen should never doubt their chosen path in life. The value of the service they give when called upon cannot be measured. I stand in awe of a truly magnificent organization, and I close that quote.
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    Well, this truly magnificent organization, yours and our U.S. Coast Guard, has made us proud as they have carried out their duties in a most professional manner with the eyes of the world upon them. People write about perfect storms and cite cases that stretch the limits of the imagination to comprehend what training and equipment and courage can accomplish. But Coast Guard people do this every day in the unforgiving and demanding environment of the sea, pitch black nights when the wind howls through the rigging and waves grow to frightful heights. The power of the sea defies comprehension by anyone who has never gone there. Salt spray driven by the wind blinds and disorients sailors. Waves test the structural integrity of even the sturdiest boats and ships. I know this because I have been there fighting for survival in the storm, hoping that my training and my experience, combined with a good ship and a dedicated crew, would allow us to do our mission and get home once again.
    The early hours of December 29th, 1997, was such a night for the Cornett family aboard the MORNING DEW as they struggled against very difficult sea conditions to make safe haven in Charleston, South Carolina. The National Transportation Safety Board declares that Mr. Cornett was not adequately prepared or equipped for the conditions he found in those offshore waters, conditions that would challenge even an experienced crew. Only a fellow sailor can imagine his last terror-filled hours and especially those of a father.
    As Coast Guardsmen, we do understand because it is on such nights that we are most often called upon to perform our duties. When mariners are battling the elements to return to port, Coast Guardsmen are heading out to fight these same elements while performing their life-saving work. If time permitted, I could recite to you story after story about heroic boat crews, cuttermen rescuing swimmers, and air crews placing themselves in harm's way to rescue others. So far this week a dozen cases have come to my personal attention because they represented selfless Coast Guard devotion to duty.
    We know that in their final desperate moments, the crew of the MORNING DEW called to the Coast Guard as their last hope. And unfortunately, we did not interpret the Mayday call and consequently did not provide the lifesaving support they so desperately needed. While the Coast Guard successfully prosecutes over 40,000 SAR cases each year, saving over 5,000 lives, it is the infrequent failure which rivets our attention.
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    Each and every Coast Guard man and woman grieves with the family and the friends of the Cornetts, and we stand firm in our resolve to learn from MORNING DEW and prevent its recurrence. As Mrs. Cornett said in her ''20/20'' interview, our challenge is to keep others from suffering this unbearable pain.
    Twelve Coast Guard people have given their lives over the past several years responding to SAR cases. While we did not interpret the call from MORNING DEW, on a night in January, '97, we did hear the call of a sailboat in distress off the stormy coast of Oregon. Coast Guardsmen answered the distress call, this time in a 44-foot motor lifeboat from Station Quillayute River. In the course of fighting their way out to sea, three Coast Guardsmen of the boat's four-person crew were killed when their boat capsized in breaking surf and was crushed on the floor of that sea by pounding waves.
    The MORNING DEW and Quillayute River incidents serve as indicators to me that we have overreached the limit in streamlining the Coast Guard, and combined with more and more well-documented readiness shortfalls, we are in jeopardy of degrading the safety of our maritime public as well as our crews. Our personnel are stretched too thin, and they are working too hard. Negative trends in training, personnel experience and equipment availability indicators have been raised and, to me, are alarming. I have tried repeatedly to sound this readiness alarm, and I am honored today that Chairman Hall's prepared statement validates many of the publicly stated concerns I have offered.
    Mr. Chairman, I offer three simple but very distinct lessons from MORNING DEW and other experiences we have had in the past several years; first, a lesson in public policy. We need to invest in a national distress communication system, and we are in the midst of doing that. We must be able to enhance and replay audio signals. We must have position-fixing, direction-finding equipment. We must be able to translate desperate Maydays into effective action. And our proposed National Distress and Response System is the right answer and should be an urgent priority for our national transportation system.
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    Second, a lesson for my Coast Guard. Eternal vigilance must come before all other organizational considerations. But eternal vigilance presumes adequate servicewide training, adequate doctrine refreshed from modern technology, and the elimination of staff shortages and experience shortfalls. We have spoken for almost a year about readiness concerns. Unfortunately, I can document more and more as days go by. The American public expects their maritime 911 call to be answered by competent, capable, adequately equipped responders. We have work to do to get to that level.
    Lastly, cases like MORNING DEW must be disseminated far and wide. The general boating public must internalize their responsibilities as prudent seamen. We must use every forum to encourage the recreational boater to err on the side of safety, to be prepared when he goes to sea, and to be prepared if in the event he is faced with an emergency.
    A properly registered 406 EPIRB, antiexposure suits on board and worn if appropriate, redundant navigational capability, and adequate life rafts, someone skilled to relieve you when you tire or become incapacitated, tested communications equipment, personal flotation devices, and thoughtful rules about the consumption of alcohol: prudent seamanship.
    Mr. Chairman, 800 lives are lost each year from boating accidents. Eight hundred lives. Eight hundred. If we know people are in trouble, if we know where to look, and if mariners in distress can float and stay warm for a few hours, we will rescue them. We are the very best in the world at what we do, but we have to know they are in trouble.
    Mr. Chairman, every life in danger at sea is an opportunity, and I hope we can commit to the investments necessary to preclude the unnecessary loss of any of them. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Admiral Loy.
    Mr. Hall.
    Mr. HALL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Taylor, Congressman Coble, members of the committee staff. It is a pleasure to represent the National Transportation Safety Board before you today regarding the subject of Coast Guard search and rescue communications. And even though, like Admiral Loy, I am very busy at this time, I wanted to be here today because of Libby Cornett.
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    Before I begin, however, I would like to thank the Coast Guard, and in particular Admiral Rick Larrabee and the men and women of the Coast Guard's First District, for their endeavors in the search and rescue effort that concluded Monday and the ongoing search and recovery for the victims of the crash of EgyptAir flight 990. This continues under very dangerous sea conditions today.
    We can all be proud of Admiral Loy, the men and women of the Coast Guard, and the dedication and the professionalism of these individuals. And I am grateful, as I know our Nation is, for the thousands of lives that have been saved by their heroic actions.
    Mr. Chairman, it is noteworthy that the MORNING DEW investigation did not identify the actual search by Coast Guard boat and helicopter crews as an issue in the accident. Once the search and rescue was initiated, it proceeded well and was professionally done. But in order for the search and rescue to take place, Coast Guard communications and operations personnel must receive, acknowledge, and act upon a distress situation.
    In the case of the MORNING DEW, that did not occur until after the Coast Guard's search and rescue personnel were notified at 11:15 a.m. On December 29th, 1997, some 8 hours after the first Mayday call from the vessel.
    Mr. Chairman, you and the committee members have been given a packet of visual aids, including a chronology of events, that will help clarify my remarks. The issues addressed in the Safety Board's report of the MORNING DEW accident, which was investigated by the Safety Board at the request of Senator Hollings, Senator Warner and other Members of Congress, included the need for upgrading Coast Guard search and rescue communication equipment, the adequacy of watchstander duty hours, the need for upgrading watchstander procedures for responding to an emergency, the need for additional training for communication watchstanders, management oversight of watchstander performance, and the lack of investigation coordination.
    The owner of the MORNING DEW was moving the vessel from South Carolina to Florida via the intracoastal waterway. However, on the afternoon of December 28, 1997, the vessel was seen proceeding outbound and toward the open ocean. Just after 2 a.m. the following morning, the MORNING DEW struck the north side of the north rock jetty extending from the harbor at Charleston, tearing open the hull. The paint markings and debris path documented by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources show that the vessel was carried over the jetty, resulting in the vessel coming to rest submerged in about 12 feet of water on the south side of the jetty.
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    At 2:17 a.m., a Coast Guard watchstander received a static-filled radio message. The watchstander told the Board in our public meeting the only words he heard were ''U.S. Coast Guard.'' when the tape was replayed much later, the voice of an adolescent male was heard saying, Mayday, Mayday, U.S. Coast Guard, come in.
    Although the watchstander tried to raise someone on the radio, he received no response. About 6.20 a.m., the boatswain of an inbound freighter heard cries for help coming from the water near buoy 22 as the ship entered Charleston Harbor. This was reported by telephone to the Coast Guard. When contacted, the Coast Guard duty officer decided to take no action. A full Coast Guard search was not initiated until the bodies of two of the teenage victims were found just off the shore around 11 a.m. The other teenager was found soon after, and the owner was not found until about 3 weeks later.
    The Board's investigation found a number of deficiencies that we delineated in our written testimony, including the performance of the operator, but I will focus my oral testimony on the equipment issues.
    The Board's investigation of the MORNING DEW accident sought to evaluate the adequacy of equipment resources available to the men and women of the Coast Guard who serve as communication watchstanders and how that equipment serves them when they receive a call for assistance from a distressed mariner. Unfortunately, a number of sufficient deficiencies with the communications equipment were found for instance, the operation testing on the direction-finding equipment at Group Charleston showed that it had inaccuracies of up to 101 degrees and was not being used. It was designed to provide a line of bearing to rather than a geographic location of the transmitting radio and could not record the bearing information for later review and correlation to recorded audio transmissions.
    Some antennas and towers needed maintenance; however, there was no program to specifically inspect the antenna towers. The Mount Pleasant antenna was located on a tower along with several other commercial antennas, causing interference in certain frequencies, and the quality of the telephone lines used to connect the group communications centers to the antenna high sites was less than optimum. The recorder used by the watchstander was difficult to operate while searching for specific recorded communications, and it was not suitable for a quick replay of recorded messages.
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    As part of the Board's investigation, Safety Board staff met with representatives of the Prince Rupert, British Columbia Marine Communications and Traffic Services Station regarding their Coast Guard search and rescue communications. The Prince Rupert radio station has been successfully using a commercially available directional finding system in search and rescue operations since 1992. These off-the-shelf commercial DF systems are currently being manufactured by several companies in the United States and elsewhere. We are advised by their personnel that the Canadian DF system is easy to use, accurate, and capable of determining the geographic location of a transmitting radio through triangulation. Because this equipment is located on the top of mountains, it is capable of receiving from 60 to 80 miles. It can also digitally record bearing information for later retrieval and analysis.
    According to the Canadian Coast Guard, this DF system has reduced search and rescue response time by eliminating time-consuming, very expensive searches for vessels in distress. As soon as the station receives a transmission, it also knows the vessel's location. The system can locate vessels in distress when incomplete calls are received. Because the equipment can also locate a hoax caller, it has reduced these nuisance calls, resulting in reduction of unnecessary search and rescue missions and cost savings.
    The Prince Rupert Marine Communications and Traffic Service Station also has recording equipment to record all incoming and outgoing radio communications. The recording equipment consists of separate units for instant playback and for longer-term archival recording. Unlike the equipment at Group Charleston at the time of the MORNING DEW accident, it allows for quick replay of a message if there is any doubt about its content.
    The Board is aware of the Coast Guard's National Distress and Response System modernization project, which has been in various stages of development for 20 years. Unfortunately, initial operational capability is not scheduled until fiscal 2003, with full operational capability in the 2005 to 2006 time frame. In the interim the Coast Guard intends to install directional finding equipment at selected communications centers and areas having significant search and rescue activity, allocating $2 million in fiscal year 2000 for the procurement of the equipment.
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    It is our understanding that the interim DF equipment will be similar in capability to equipment now in place at communications centers, and will only provide a line of bearing to the transmitting vessel and will not have the ability to record DF data. The Board believes that this equipment will not significantly improve the Coast Guard's ability to effectively respond to a distress call.
    The Coast Guard should immediately begin to install all search and rescue communications centers with currently available commercial, off-the-shelf directional finding systems that provide, at a minimum, the capability to establish a position fix and to record position data for later retrieval and analysis.
    Mr. Chairman, we recognize that over the past few years the Coast Guard has had its budget and personnel significantly reduced. However, it is a responsibility of the United States Coast Guard to inform this Committee of the minimum resources needed to ensure public safety. Admiral Loy has done that this morning.
    That completes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I have with me the director of our Office of Marine Safety, Marjorie Murtagh, and our general counsel, Mr. Dan Campbell. We will be glad to attempt to respond to any questions the Committee might have.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mr. Hall.
    I want to make a very brief statement to concur with a number of things that have been said here this morning and then ask both of you just a series of short questions.
    Many people listen to the statements made here this morning by witnesses and certainly Members of Congress, and it is our intent that specifically all those young men and women that are now in the Coast Guard, we encourage them to do their duty with a sense of responsibility and with a sense of great appreciation on the part of America and this Congress for the difficult job that they do. But we also want them to know that we as Members of Congress must have an immediate sense of urgency that a great deal more resources are required for them to complete the task at hand. That is resources to ensure increased number of people in the Coast Guard and increased dollars to make new technology immediately available.
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    The first question I have comes from the NTSB marine accident report, which I would like each of you to briefly respond. What I would like to do, it is actually number 7 from the NTSB accident report of the MORNING DEW, immediately begin to equip all your search and rescue communications centers with currently available commercial off-the-shelf direction-finding systems that provide at a minimum the capability to establish a position fix and to record position data for later retrieval and analysis.
    My question is, Admiral, can you identify all those Coast Guard facilities that do not have now that type of capability and what do you think the cost of that would be to give them that capability, and in your judgment, is that a necessary thing to do in a matter of months? Can the $16 million that have been appropriated for the communication infrastructure be in part used for that?
    Admiral LOY. Mr. Chairman, yes, those things can be identified clearly and have been. Secondly, the National Distress and Response System project goes directly to that capability among those things that we want to use as an enhanced integrated system available to those watch centers to do exactly that. DF capability is an enormous piece of that. The Chairman is right on target with respect to the dimensions, if you will, or the attributes of that DF system. It can't be a single line of bearing. What it must become is an opportunity to fix position and record data such that for analytical purposes thereafter we can go back to it.
    With respect to the $16 million funding line that is a part of the NDNRS system this year, sir, those monies are devoted to the concept design and functional design, first phases of NDNRS that will culminate in us understanding precisely what it is as a package we want to have at those units. It is focused in its specifications on commercial off-the-shelf capability. We are not in the business of attempting to design something of the future, rather to take advantage of what is already available.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Hall made mention of the Canadian Coast Guard. I don't know if they get their stuff at Radio Shack, but, Mr. Hall, you said it is off-the-shelf technology that is commercially available. I know that the important thing here is to ensure that the Coast Guard in a very short period of time creates a communication infrastructure system much the way or at least in part the way Mrs. Cornett described, where the coffeemaker is there, it is easy to relisten to a tape, there is directional finding equipment available right within the system, there is filtering systems so that the information can be enhanced and the garbled message can be more easily distinguished. So is there a system that can be put into a Coast Guard station with that technology that we have right now, and in the meantime, before we get to that point, is it prudent to take this off-the-shelf technology in pieces at various stations?
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    Admiral LOY. Yes, sir. Let me see if I can get to the three questions that I think are in your question. First of all, as it relates to the ergonomic structure of any given watch center, we are working very hard, and have already totally redesigned the Charleston watch center. We have exactly those thoughts in mind and continue to do that at every operations center that we have in the Nation.
    There are two equipment inferences that your question asks. One of them is about the ability to record and play back in a slowdown or enhanced mode so as to ascertain precisely what might have been on that radio signal that came in, and you did or did not have the sureness that you understood it. That system has already been placed in all of our watch centers around the Coast Guard, sir.
    With respect to DF, the choice becomes one of understanding that the design work for the eventual total system is exactly what is described as being necessary by the NTSB recommendations, and that is precisely where we are going with NDRS. In the interim, sir, which is your point about timeliness, we will, in fact, install a DF capability. That which we have had the funds to direct at the moment does not offer fixed position on the basis of a single signal; rather, if we mount on multiple antennas and gain multiple lines of bearing, we can acquire the fixed position that Chairman Hall is describing as being enormously important, which it is. If we get a single line of bearing, it does not help much as it relates to my opening testimony of knowing where they are so that we can get there and rescue them.
    But I hope I have answered what I thought were the three aspects of the question you asked, sir.
    Mr. GILCHREST. At some point, either now or later Admiral, we would appreciate within a week, I guess, if you can do it, now if you have the information, the approximate cost of creating—.
    Admiral LOY. DF capability.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Well, not only DF capability, but satellite communications, DF capability, the whole system of communication that I understand is in the process of being upgraded over the next 5 or 6 years.
    Admiral LOY. Yes, sir. The window of that project, sir, is between 2- and $300 million for the Nation overall. What we are able to do in the interim is provide, as the Chairman's recommendations so guide us, both tape replay capability and DF capability as quickly as we can, even if in the interim, as we step towards that eventual integrated system of the future.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Hall, your 15th recommendation, I would just like you to respond to it. Then I would like Admiral Loy, if you could make some comments as well.
    Within 6 months revise statements, memoranda of understanding that define a relationship between the States and the Coast Guard to accurately reflect current responsibilities and jurisdictions of the State and the Coast Guard in such areas as boating casualty accident investigation, and reporting search and rescue, and related boating safety issues.
    This recommendation, I guess, came as a result of the investigation of the MORNING DEW, and the relationship between the Coast Guard, the States, boating associations, NTSB, whatever. Can you just comment on this recommendation and—.
    Mr. HALL. This recommendation pertains to the relationship between the Coast Guard and the various authorities at the State level that have been delegated some of the Coast Guard's authority for boating safety activities. I believe this was done in the early 1970's under memorandum of understandings across the country.
    The disturbing situation in regard to the MORNING DEW accident was there was important information that was withheld from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources investigators. It appeared that one of the reasons it was withheld was a failure of Coast Guard personnel to have a full understanding of their responsibilities under the memorandum of understanding and the authority of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in conducting the investigation of this death accident.
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    It would be a very useful and important exercise for public safety for the Coast Guard and the various State authorities to sit down and redo these memorandums of understanding, which will provide a currently dated agreement, and opportunity for each of the entities to redefine and fully understand their responsibilities in boating safety in the specific jurisdictions that their work comes together.
    Mr. GILCHREST. I see. Thank you.
    Admiral Loy.
    Admiral LOY. Yes, sir. I think the recommendation is right on target. In Charleston, the Commander and his team there were not aware, literally, of the agreement that was dated 1984; it needs to be refreshed. I have directed that all of them be refreshed, not only as it relates to the functional reorientation of who is going to be responsible for what, but further that there be a cycle of review in the future that does not allow us to drift in the past toward a we-know-it-is-there-somewhere kind of a situation, but we haven't really made it part of our daily life.
    These are very fundamental responsibilities that we share with the States, and, I would add, with the local government representatives often as well, and I believe that the next panel will be able to address that as well. But we have directed the review and refreshment of those MOUs, and as I say, that a cycle of review into the future that keeps them on the front burner.
    Mr. GILCHREST. I see. Thank you, Admiral.
    Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And like you, I understand that we have as Congress a fine line to walk between trying to ensure the public safety and at the same time, since we do read our mail knowing that there is a fairly large element out there in America that says you are overregulating us; you are getting to the point where you are mandating so many things for my safety that it borders on ridiculous—this is truly one of those instances where those two aspects clash.
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    Had we as a Nation mandated a working EPIRB, in my mind that family would have been saved. On the flip side if we as a Nation were to mandate a working EPIRB, I would probably receive 10,000 letters from south Mississippians saying, why on Earth are you forcing me to buy a $500 piece of equipment that I will never use because I am such a great boat handler? And I have never heard anybody tell me they were a bad boat handler. And it does make a tough call.
    In fairness to the Coast Guardsmen, a statement was made that Coast Guard has no duty to rescue. I can remember from my days at boot camp a very—what I thought was a cornball statement that was said repeatedly that really became a way of life, because it seems a little cornball when you are 17 years old. The statement that was said repeatedly at boot camp is you have to go out, but you don't have to come back.
    Those kids live that every day. And it is not fair to them that live that every day, that I have never, ever heard of a boat crew that would say, I am not going out, it is not safe. Never. In fairness to those crews who are on duty when we are eating Thanksgiving dinner, they are on duty. When we are opening our presents on Christmas morning, they are on duty. When we are celebrating New Year's Eve, they are on duty. In fairness to them, that has to be said.
    Having said that, I do have to ask some questions based on my experiences way back then, and maybe it has changed. I do know that knowing that people have families. Coast Guard, like any other good employer, tries to accommodate people around the holiday time. I notice this took place December the 29th. So it is, Commandant, I think, a fair question that has to be asked, was the station short-handed because of the holiday season?
    Admiral LOY. Mr. Taylor, I don't know whether they were up to complement in terms of billeted strength and bodies on board in their total structure on that particular day or through that month of December. What I can say is that the watchstanding requirements were met for the day. In other words, the thought process of two-person integrity, which includes a live person in the watch center and the availability of a senior supervisor that will be brought to that watch center in the event that the person alive and well and awake in the watch center needs his additional hands, needs his additional experience, decision-making capability or whatever, was, in fact, available in the Group Charleston watch center that night.
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    Mr. TAYLOR. How many boat crews were on duty at 2:00 in the morning on the 29th?
    Admiral LOY. There was one available to be called, sir.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Were they actually on station, or were they at home with their beepers?
    Admiral LOY. My sense is that they were on station. I would be very surprised if it was different than that. But I would have to go and ask that question to get you that answer.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Could you supply for the record an answer to that question?
    [The information received follows.]

    One duty boat crew was at Station Charleston when the distress call from the MORNING DEW was received. That one crew was required to stay onboard Station Charleston during their duty rotation.

    A follow-up question would be how many are normally on duty at 2:00 in the morning any given day of the year? Is it one ready boat crew every day of the year, is it two ready boat crews but they go down to the one because of the holidays and trying to be decent employers and let people go home and see their families? I know you can't know these things off the top of your head, but I do think it is a fair question to ask, and it is something that we deserve to know.
    Admiral LOY. The fundamental answer up front is absolutely as a good employer we will make accommodations where we can to not adjust the integrity of a watch section, but to rotate our people such that through the course of—we usually do it, at least in my recollection, in my day, we did it over the course of all three of those holidays that you mentioned such that any given member of the crew would have at least one of those holidays at home. But the on-watch nature, the absolute integrity of the response capability is there 365 days a year.
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    Mr. TAYLOR. How many standby crews did you have then, and how many would you have normally?
    Admiral LOY. I don't know what Group Charleston had on that night, sir, but what I can tell you is that varies, as it should, from group to group, from station to station around the service at large. Just several years ago when there was a focused effort to relevel capability of Coast Guard stations around the service, we did so with workload in mind. There are seasonal variations, there are day/night variations. There are weekday/weekend variations. That is just the nature of a good leader and manager of that station putting those people when they need to be on watch.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Commandant, I appreciate you supplying that for the record. I am aware of that. I am just curious what the dynamics at 2:00 in the morning on the 29th of December.
    Admiral LOY. We will provide that, sir.
    [The information received follows:]

    Station Charleston is neither staffed nor required to have more than one crew on duty at a time. If an emergency need arose for an additional crew, it would have to be recalled.

    Mr. TAYLOR. Something else that I think, again that I hope the public would be aware of, is that generally bad things tend to happen at night during bad weather, and they tend to happen in rashes. You will tend to have not just one distress call, but because of weather is crummy, because the visibility is crummy, you will suddenly have two, three calls.
    Was the boat crew either under way, coming back, or getting ready to respond to another call at that time?
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    Admiral LOY. No, it was not. It was the only case.
    Mr. TAYLOR. So this was the only call. Something that I noticed in looking at the photograph of the MORNING DEW is this little device right here is an automatic strobe light. It is—when it turns right side up from being thrown overboard, it starts flashing, and obviously anyone familiar with the sea would know that that is a sign of trouble and hopefully call the Coast Guard. Was it found in a deployable condition?
    Admiral LOY. I don't know the answer, sir, but we will get that for the record.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Because, again, realizing that you can't be everywhere at once, if there was a sighting of a strobe, and it was reported, absolutely.
    Admiral LOY. Absolutely. It would be another piece of information to work on.
    [The information received follows:]

    The automatic strobe light was found in the wreckage of the MORNING DEW and did not operate when recovered.

    Mr. TAYLOR. Commandant, in fairness to the Coast Guard, and since I am a little rusty, would you explain what sort of equipment is carried on a typical 41-foot utility boat as far as communications equipment?
    Admiral LOY. Principally it is an HF transceiver and a VHF-FM transceiver and a cell phone these days so as to provide the third dimension of communications capability. Those would be the three standard pieces of equipment that would be carried on a 41-footer for communications.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Do they sometimes carry citizen band radios, or is that phased out?
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    Admiral LOY. I don't think that is a requirement for that to be. In some places, especially lakes and rivers where we are predominantly dealing with tugs and tows and such as that, we will augment a standard suite with whatever makes sense in that local geography.
    Mr. TAYLOR. A point has been made of the 12-hour watch of the radio operator. I guess again in fairness, is that normal, or had that time frame been lengthened in order to allow some people to go home for the holidays?
    Admiral LOY. It was the normal watch rotation.
    Mr. TAYLOR. That never changes.
    Admiral LOY. Yes, sir.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Commandant, the Coast Guard, like every government agency, wrestles with trying to do the best they can with what they have. And certainly I don't ever recall one of my constituents telling me they aren't paying too much in taxes and they would love to see their taxes raised. So it puts, I think, the Coast Guard in a predicament. In the old days the light stations were almost all constructed, and search and rescue stations were almost always constructed in the most likely event for a catastrophic event to take place, most likely place. It also happens to be, because of the forces of nature, the most likely place where a building could be demolished in the next hurricane or storm because you are right there at the mouth of the channel.
    So in trying to balance those needs and trying to protect those installations that the taxpayers have paid for, I have noticed a tendency over the years for the bases to be moved around the corner of the inlet. And if my memory serves me correctly, in the case of Charleston actually probably a couple of miles from the inlet, a place they refer to as the city docks. Was that station ever closer to the mouth of the Charleston Harbor?
    Admiral LOY. Not to my knowledge, sir.
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    Mr. TAYLOR. It was always there—.
    Admiral LOY. There.
    Mr. TAYLOR. —physically.
    And again, when I went through Charleston, it was before this accident, so I wasn't trying to line these things up, is it physically possible to see the jetties from the Coast Guard's station at Charleston?
    Admiral LOY. No, I don't believe it is.
    Mr. TAYLOR. So if there had—and again, in fairness to the Coast Guard, one of the things we do require is for every vessel of this size to carry flares, both hand-held and deployed up in the air. Were there any flare sightings?
    Admiral LOY. Not that I am aware of.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Did anyone at any time report any flare sightings—
    Admiral LOY. Not that I am aware of.
    Mr. TAYLOR. —around this time?
    Admiral LOY. Not that I am aware of.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Something that I think is a fair question, and I would think from time to time you meet with the different boating groups, I notice a representative of one of them here today, if I am not mistaken, they also happen to be in the boating insurance business. Has trying to keep in mind this balance between too many mandates and not enough, has anyone from the Coast Guard ever encouraged the boating insurance industry to offer some sort of a discount incentive for people who voluntarily go above and beyond on the equipment? For example, would they offer a discount if you had a working EPIRB on board? Would they offer a discount if you carried a self-inflating life raft on board? Knowing that this is indeed an expense, but just as they reward nonsmokers and people with safe driving records, wouldn't it make sense, since they are the ones who pay the claims, for them to offer some sort of a discounts if someone is taking the steps to go above and beyond to protect their own lives?
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    Admiral LOY. I don't know the answer to your question, sir. There may actually be someone on the next panel who could help with that.
    My thoughts go to two things: One, the incentivizing thought process is a very, very real one for all of us to think through and partner, if you will, with a view towards finding what is a good solution there, if it, in fact, can help the recreational boating statistical profile to make it go the direction we want it to go.
    The second thought I have goes to your thought about that balance between mandates on one hand and tax-paying on the other. The way I tried to think it through, especially in the wake of MORNING DEW and a couple of other cases, is that there is a difference between meeting legal mandates and being prudent as a responsible recreational boater or commercial mariner for that matter. And therein lies the opportunity for a difference between legal mandates on one hand and what you perceive is your ultimate responsibility as a mariner to be prudent under the circumstances under which you go to sea.
    And so I echo your thoughts about that challenge that Congress always has about overregulating, underregulating on one hand, and offer that there must be always, as a result of educational efforts and as a result of just personal responsibility, a prudence level reached that may, in fact, be different from meeting the legal requirements, whether that is as a carrier requirement for what must be carried on board, and your thoughts about EPIRBs earlier in your questioning go to that, or just the general thought process of what is brought about, what I am about to undertake, and do I have the wherewithal internalized to do it and do it well and do it safely.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Taylor, we will come back for second round of questions.
    Mr. TAYLOR. With the Commandant? Can I make one last question? I notice a man overboard pole and what is referred to as a horseshoe life ring in the photograph. Were either of them recovered, because again, if someone had spotted them, you would think that they would call in that something was amiss.
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    Admiral LOY. I don't know the answer to your question, but I will get that for you.
    [The information received follows:]

    The MORNING DEW's horseshoe life ring was recovered in the area where the first two victims were found. A man overboard pole was never recovered.

    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. HALL. We could respond to some of the questions that the Congressman has asked as part of our investigation, and I could either provide that for the record, or we could answer those, respond to those now, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Coble, would you like to go before Mr. Hall, or do you want Mr. Hall?
    Mr. COBLE. That will be your call, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. GILCHREST. My call.
    Mr. HALL. I would defer. In that case I would defer to the Congressman, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. COBLE. I will be brief, Mr. Hall, Mr. Chairman, if I may.
    Mr. GILCHREST. I will yield to the gentleman from North Carolina, and then when Mr. Coble is done, Mr. Hall, I think we would like to hear your responses to Mr. Taylor's questions.
    Mr. COBLE. Mr. Hall, thank you. I won't take a whole lot of time.
    Yesterday, Admiral, I managed a bill on the House floor regarding the flood that has been plaguing eastern North Carolina, and I took time to praise the Coast Guard for what it has done there. The Coast Guard was rescuing victims from treetops and housetops, and I appreciate what you all have done down there.
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    I am going to have to be careful how I do this because I don't want to appear that I am telling you, Admiral, how to do your lobbying up here, but some of my colleagues have claimed that when the Coast Guard comes to the Hill, that the spokesmen are not assertive enough or not aggressive enough in making your case.
    Now, we have some folks who represent agencies, military and otherwise, who strut in up here with the swagger of an NBA star, and they will ask for $5 million additional money when all they need is 500,000, hoping to get 1–1/2 million.
    The word on the Coast Guard—now, this is just hearsay, Admiral, I haven't seen it in operation—but the word on the Coast Guard is after they have been told that they are going to have 9 or 10 additional areas of responsibility, the Coast Guard's spokesmen will say, well, we will do the best we can. Even though you are not giving us any additional money to take care of it, we will try to do what we can.
    I have been exposed to this oldest of seagoing services in America for a long time, Mr. Hall and Ms. Murtagh, the Admiral knows this, and I have always said that the Coast Guard was the orphan stepchild at a family reunion, given the crumbs off the table, give everybody else what they want. That may be because maybe OMB doesn't look favorably to the Coast Guard. I am not asserting that, but that may be an assertion that is valid.
    Having said all that, Admiral, and if it appears that I am trying to tell you how to lobby, I don't mean to, maybe it is because I am so subjectively involved, I would like to see the Coast Guard get what it is due.
    Now, Mrs. Cornett in her testimony indicated that Coast Guard equipment needs to be updated, and this has been touched on as we moved along this morning. Admiral, having said that, quoting Mrs. Cornett, let me ask you this: Admiral Loy, is it your belief that the Coast Guard has adequate resources in terms of equipment and personnel to sustain themselves when the extraordinary level of activity is required when these rescue calls come in?
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    Admiral LOY. I think there are two answers to the question, sir. First of all, my intention is to be quite clear as to requirements of what this organization has and needs to get done, what it needs to do for this Nation, and the mandate list is as long as your arm. And Mrs. Cornett's comment with respect to the size of the organization being about the same as it was in 1963 is absolutely right on target.
    I will express as clearly as I know how, as I have done publicly and in many arenas, that I think we have overstretched the limits of streamlining in this organization, and we need the wherewithal to do what we need to do for this Nation and in very clear terms. With the project that we are talking about today, NDRS is a terrific, well-thought-out, well-designed project that will provide the Coast Guard the answers to the questions that were on the table today. And I look forward to the continued congressional support as we have had already and OMB's support and the Administration's support to make that happen over the course of the next 3 to 4 years.
    When you talk about when the big emergency comes in, and I know your reference is back to North Carolina, we are out of surge capacity without a significant drawdown to what we might have to be doing elsewhere in the Nation. As you know, Mr. Coble, we brought in aircraft and crews from seven air stations around the country and hosted Navy, Marine, and Army capability at the Coast Guard air station in Elizabeth City to save those 500 to 600 people from those treetops and from those housetops in the first 42 hours of Hurricane Floyd's passing. We should do that, and we will do that tomorrow if another hurricane comes by. But I would be remiss if I suggested to you that in so doing, we did not lower the readiness profile of our service to all of those places from which we drew assets to do what was necessary in North Carolina.
    Mr. COBLE. I thank you, Admiral and Mr. Hall. True to my word I am brief, and I yield back my time to the Chairman.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Coble.
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    Mr. Hall.
    Mr. HALL. Yes. I can respond to a couple of items that the Congressman was asking questions on. Our investigation found that the boat crew was on duty at 2 a.m., but they were not called out. There is no Coast Guard requirement for a VHF radio or a cell phone.
    On the horseshoe ring retrieval, yes, it was found with the two teenage boys. On the strobe light, yes it was found, but the battery was dead by the time we saw it, which was months after the event.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Hall. I have just—.
    Mr. HALL. And if it would be permissible I would just like to be sure that the committee, and particularly Congressman Taylor, understands that the thrust of the Board's testimony this morning is, we feel, in support of the Coast Guard and not critical of the Coast Guard. We believe adequate communication resources will provide the assets to the Coast Guard men and women, and will actually protect them. Every time they go out on a hoax call, they endanger their own lives, and they risk the helicopters and the boats. Any time they go out not knowing specifically where they need to be looking, and we have the capability to do that, they are risking their lives. We feel that the testimony here today is clearly in support of providing the Coast Guard resources.
    There were some very unfortunate things that happened in the MORNING DEW, one of which was, of course, was the call heard at 2:00 was not associated with the later call. Therefore the equipment was not deployed. There are a number of issues here, but we present all of them to this Committee not as criticism, but as a feeling by the Board that the Coast Guard needs to have up-to-date equipment, and needs to have the resources to have that equipment in order to do their job.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Hall, do you have a sense as to the time frame for the Coast Guard to get this communications system in place, the DF system, recording system, the Coast Guard—and I am going to ask the Admiral a slightly different question.
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    It is my understanding from what you have said, Admiral, this new communications infrastructure, this new system, comprehensive system, would be in place at all Coast Guard facilities hopefully before 5 years. Is that a relative—.
    Admiral LOY. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, a question has been raised as to how we can accelerate the National Defense and Response System project. I believe in the design work that is going on for concept and functional design, I don't believe those two early phases can be accelerated, but once we know exactly what it is that we are going to procure, then obviously an acceleration associated with installation could be made to happen. So—.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Hall, do you have any—you have made a series of recommendations in this accident report. Much have to do with the communications infrastructure. Do you have any—does your agency have any perspective or expertise on the kind of communications system that would be useful for the Coast Guard? Is there any communication between your agency and the Coast Guard as far as those new systems are concerned?
    Mr. HALL. Our Office of Research and Engineering has a number of individuals who have expertise in that area, and we sent them to Canada to look at the facilities there. The recommendations were made with the hope that the Coast Guard would take immediate action in this area. As this committee is aware, the original plan called for implementation by 2001, which has already slipped to 2003. If there is any assistance we can provide, Admiral Loy, we would be glad to do so, but—.
    Mr. GILCHREST. The system that you looked at in Canada, do you consider that a system that can be—that can replace the system that we have right now in a comprehensive way, or the system in Canada is an interim system that the Coast Guard can employ until the comprehensive system was in place?
    Mr. HALL. That was the recommendation, that the Coast Guard ought to look at that system as an interim replacement.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Admiral, has the Coast Guard looked at that Canadian system?
    Admiral LOY. Yes, we have. We are very familiar with it. There was, I think, a $10 million price tag that was sort of being used to reflect what it would take to put the Prince Rupert system in place. I think the reality is—.
    Mr. GILCHREST. That is $10 million to put—is it your—is it prudent to spend—in your judgment, to spend that $10 million to put the Prince Rupert system in place as an interim system? And if that is a prudent thing to do, how long would it take to do that?
    Admiral LOY. I don't think it is prudent, because I think the dollar value is sort of a red herring. It is a bit of a misnomer. The system that is there covers an area about the size of the State of Rhode Island. To do that around the coastal U.S. is going to be a lot more money than the $10 million figure cited.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Does that match with your assessment of that, Mr. Hall?
    Mr. HALL. No, sir. We think the $10 million is probably excessive because the site of the Prince Rupert is in very mountainous areas, very difficult, very expensive to install the antennas and various other aspects. Obviously any system on an interim basis is going to cost money. I am confident that we have the expertise in the United States to do a responsible job of not wasting the tax dollars, but coming up with the system that would be responsive to our recommendation on an interim basis.
    I hope that this system does not become like our air traffic control system overhaul, having to spend millions and billions of dollars just to be thrown out. I am pleased to hear this morning that Admiral Loy wants to move forward, and that he is requesting the resources to do it. I am confident he has the expertise to put in the best system for the American people.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Just so—I have one more follow-up question. I thank Mr. Taylor for being patient with me this time. I am going to yield to you in a second if you have any further questions.
    Mr. TAYLOR. If you forgive me for my previous promise not to ask any more.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Without a doubt.
    So, Mr. Hall, at this point your recommendation to the Coast Guard would be to use the Canadian system as an interim system. I want to make sure I was clear.
    Mr. HALL. That is the recommendation. And let me just expand slightly. It costs the Coast Guard $3,700 an hour—this is their numbers—when they go out for SAR resources on aircraft. A medium-size cutter is $1,550. A small boat is $300 to $400. So you would have to look at the savings that an up-to-date communications system might bring you in the prudent use of the resources that are available to you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Admiral, if—the Canadian system, or a Canadian like system, were to be put in place in the U.S.. How many Coast Guard facilities need that type of system, and how much would it cost?
    Admiral LOY. Sir, let me just tell you what we have done.
    Mr. GILCHREST. One last thing. How fast can we put an interim system into place in those facilities that need that system?
    Admiral LOY. Sir, we have identified about 25 to 30 locations around the Nation, including the 14th and the 17th Districts, the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska, and elsewhere, and we have committed out of the readiness dollars that were provided, as you might recall, sir, in the Kosovo supplemental, the few that ended up actually being delivered as readiness relief dollars, about $15 million, we have devoted $2 million to that, which will provide a DF capability to those 30 locations in about a year.
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    And we are about the business of doing it. Five are already online, and the balance are under way. And as I testified earlier, the tape replay systems are already in place around the country. Now—.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Every facility has a tape replay system.
    Admiral LOY. That is correct, sir. The reality is, however, that the DF systems that are being put there do not have all the attributes of what we want to get out of the NDRS system. So Chairman Hall's commentary about fixed position emissions as opposed to just a line of bearing, and his commentary about being able to pull recorded data forward for analytical purposes later are all right on target. Our judgment is with the dollars that we are provided, we have committed those $2 million to provide those 25 or so locations this interim DF capability. Some of those will have multiple antenna sites that will yield more than a single line of bearing and, therefore, a fix, if you will. Others will not. But they do have at least the attribute of better DF capability than we had, for example, on that December morning in Charleston, South Carolina.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Admiral, Mr. Hall.
    Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Commandant, we can second-guess ourselves to death, but on something that the Coast Guard does control, which aids to navigation, I was just curious. Having approached Charleston at night in fairly decent seas, and really working my way all the way up to the jetty before I realized something was amiss and turned the boat around and went back out to the sea and came back in through the channel, it is a natural tendency to try to take the shortest path, especially if it is night. You are tired, cold, whatever.
    How well marked is that submerged jetty, and is there a marked channel through it? I am asking. I don't know the answer. If I recall, if it hadn't have been for my experience in the Coast Guard and seeing a breaker, a larger one than normal, crash on it and realize, hey, something is wrong here and backing up, I wouldn't have known it was there. I was not at the helm; was cooking dinner. I went upstairs just to bring somebody their dinner and kind of caught it just in time.
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    How well marked are those jetties, and is any remedial action taken to try to do a better job of putting—.
    Admiral LOY. We think the aids to navigation markings approaching the Charleston Harbor are in excellent shape. We have—I directed—.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I am not talking about the channel, sir. The channel is beautifully marked. I am talking about those actual jetties. Are there a number of quick flashing lights to indicate?
    Admiral LOY. There are, sir. There the jetty is marked.
    There are two judgments here that I think are important as it relates to navigation. One, when the judgment was made to depart the ICW and go offshore, is that body of water well marked with aids to navigation that would allow the prudent mariner to make a good judgment there? And we found that to be the case. And again, when we looked very hard at Charleston, including the jetties, we found that to be adequately marked as well.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I have got to ask you, because since I have left the Coast Guard, the rules have changed. You know, we used to start out—when I started out, anyone who broke down, we went and got them regardless of the circumstances. I believe it was during the Reagan Administration that the rules were changed, and they said we are going to try to save the taxpayer some money, so if it is not a life-threatening situation, we are going to let commercial towing do it, which has obviously started a new industry, but I can tell you has also created some hard feelings among the citizens who pay for the Coast Guard.
    And I have actually, as I have told you personally, witnessed one situation where one of your boats passed by someone who was hard aground three or four times, a very elderly couple, and it infuriated me. Has anyone taken the time to see if the reliance on commercial towing has in any way degraded your SAR capabilities?
    Because one of the things you drilled into my head, or your predecessors, was a high presence. So every time we went out there just to pull in some fishermen who were broke down, we were still out looking around in case something else went wrong, something more serious than that. Has the reliance on commercial towing degraded your SAR capabilities?
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    Admiral LOY. I don't think it has, sir. I think at the other end of the day, the judgment calls that need to be made by those watchstanders in terms of whether it is an emergency SAR or a nonemergent SAR, which is the two categories that calls have to be placed into, makes it quite clear that the Coast Guard's responsibilities for emergent SAR are identical to the days that you were a member of a boat crew. Our response to that must remain the same.
    It goes precisely to the eternal vigilance thought process I tried to exhibit in my opening testimony. So although it varies geographically in some corners of the Nation's coasts, there has been an emergence of an industry that is in the business of responding to nonemergent SAR and in other places will find absolutely nobody at all interested in that business.
    That calls for a variety, if you will, of Coast Guard attention to be placed on the full scope of SAR requirements in one area and emergent SAR requirements in another. But in terms of total system responsibility, I think we are just fine, sir, with the exception, as we have been discussing today, of the communications infrastructure challenges that we are facing.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Commandant, I will try to balance this in fairness again. Going from memory, there are three or four rivers that empty into the ocean at Charleston; number of peninsulas, certainly a lot of places where something could go wrong. You add to that the entrance and the exit for the intracoastal waterway and the actual entrance to the ocean. So again, in fairness to the Coast Guard, it is not a matter of just walking out and looking out over an open bay and seeing if something is amiss or just one ocean.
    On the flip side, based on my experience, and having chased no telling how many flare sightings, having chased no telling how many little short garbled messages, I can't understand why a boat was not dispatched when the report was made by the pilot boat that we thought we heard somebody. Again, I am going to tell you it goes back to my question about the reliance on others, the reliance on commercial towing. Who made the call? What was the rank of the person who made the call not to dispatch the boat? Was it a chief? Was it a first class petty officer?
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    Admiral LOY. It was an E–6, sir. The judgment of that, the harbor pilot boat who had offered and been dispatched to make a check of the area towards that voice that was heard from the water, that that would have resulted in an adequate search, if you will, of what had been that particular source of emergency call. Is there a—is there room here to challenge the judgment of two calls made through the course of the MORNING DEW experience? Of course there is. We want every case that has the potential to be a life lost at sea to be responded to at the 100 percent level by the U.S. Coast Guard. That is our ethic. That is what we are all about. But we also understand that in an organization that is made up of people and equipment and doctrine, the three things that really go together to eventually provoke a response to any situation, there is room, unfortunately, for human error to creep in there.
    I think that judgments associated with that call, especially at the post–6:20 in the morning call were problematic. And I as well as everyone else that wears a Coast Guard uniform wishes we could have the opportunity to make that judgment again. But it was a judgment that was made on the part of that petty officer with certainly no malice aforethought. He simply made the judgment that he felt an adequate review of the voice heard had been undertaken by the pilot boat when he offered and was sent by the Coast Guard to search the area and came up empty.
    Mr. TAYLOR. What day of the week was the accident? Was it a weekday or weekend?
    Mr. HALL. Sunday.
    Admiral LOY. Sunday, sir.
    Mr. TAYLOR. What time of the day are your boat crews in Charleston relieved?
    Admiral LOY. My guess is that it was later in the morning, somewhere around 9:00.
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    Mr. TAYLOR. Could you get that for the record?
    Admiral LOY. I can, absolutely.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I would sure hate to think that there was a reluctance not to send out a boat crew that was about to be relieved and that led to the situation.
    Admiral LOY. I am absolutely certain that had nothing to do with it, sir, but I will get you that piece of information.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The information received follows:]

The boat crew was relieved at 0730. The initial call from the pilot office to Group Charleston came in at 0628 (the Group Duty Officer (GDO) had come on watch at 0600). The pilot office stated that they were sending their boat to the vicinity of buoy 22 to investigate a report of people yelling for help. At 0715, the pilot office called the Group and advised that the pilot boat had searched the area and neither heard nor found anything. The GDO determined that no further action was required.

    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
    We have another vote on right now. So we will recess, go to that vote, be right back. But, Mr. Hall and Admiral Loy, you have given us excellent testimony here this morning. We appreciate your vigilance and wish you well on this new incident off the coast of Rhode Island. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. We will recess for 15 minutes.
[Recess]

    Mr. GILCHREST. The hearing will come to order.
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    Mr. Taylor will be here shortly.
    Our next panel is Paul Donheffner, President, National Association of State Boating Law Administrators, and Director, State of Oregon Marine Board.
    And Captain Dean Scarborough, Regional Commander, Maryland National Resources Police, and the Captain operates predominantly in the Chesapeake Bay.

TESTIMONY OF PAUL DONHEFFNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE BOATING LAW ADMINISTRATORS, AND DIRECTOR, OREGON STATE MARINE BOARD; AND CAPTAIN DEAN F. SCARBOROUGH, CENTRAL REGIONAL COMMANDER, MARYLAND NATURAL RESOURCES POLICE

    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Donheffner, you may begin.
    Mr. DONHEFFNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.
    NASBLA is a professional association consisting of State boating officials having responsibility for administering and enforcing State boating laws. Our association is recognized for its stewardship of recreational boating safety. My testimony today will focus on our partnership with the Coast Guard in search and rescue.
    We do have working memorandums of understanding with each district commander. These MOUs define our relationship with the Coast Guard in search and rescue, law enforcement and boating accident reporting. In some cases, these work great, and I think you will hear from the State of Maryland regarding their relationship on that but unfortunately there are times when the spirit of those agreements doesn't always translate to proper action in the field.
    There are examples where we have not been able to agree on protocols for notification and reporting of boating accidents, as an example, especially where the Coast Guard is the sole responder to these accidents.
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    A recent study of accident data between 1995 and 1997 identified 223 Coast Guard SAR cases involving 262 fatalities that did not get reported to the Coast Guard boating accident reporting system. Why? This happened in large part because the SAR date on those accidents was never provided to the States which are responsible for reporting boating accidents or to the Coast Guard's own boating accident reporting system. The Coast Guard recently received a number of recommendations to overcome that problem, and I think in light of the NTSB report, it needs to be fixed soon.
    We concur with the Safety Board's report on the MORNING DEW and the recommendation, number 15, to the Coast Guard and to the States to revise and review our memorandums of understanding to more accurately reflect the current responsibilities and jurisdictions that we have and share with them on joint jurisdictional waters in areas such as boating accident investigation and reporting, search and rescue and related boating safety issues. To improve upon the current system we offer five specific recommendations.
    First, the Coast Guard, States and local units of government implement the incident command system originally developed for response to fires, but now adopted by the National Association of Search and Rescue for all kinds of responses.
    Second, all of these units should perform annual or joint training sections on the incident command system including actual practice SAR cases.
    Third, the Coast Guard, States and local units should immediately notify each other upon initial awareness of a boating accident in order to initiate an SAR response and/or begin an investigation of the accident depending on the situation.
    Fourth, the Coast Guard, States and local units should fully and immediately share all information relative to a boating accident with the agency responsible for completing the investigation and submitting the information to the Coast Guard's boating safety program.
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    And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the four items that you I have just mentioned should and must be included in all Coast Guard and State boating agreements, and they should be established as formal standard operating procedures for Coast Guard and State field personnel so that the problems that we face with turnover and loss of institutional memory as people move on is overcome. We need to make those standard procedures from the district commanders down to the group commanders down to the station commanders so that everyone is on the same page.
    In addition, we agree with the need to modernize Coast Guard communications equipment, provide better training of watch standards and SAR personnel and adequate staffing of field units, and the sooner the better.
    Our association supports all measures to prevent accidents from occurring. State interventions through education and enforcement play a significant role in preventing accidents and reducing the need for SAR. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
    With Federal boating safety grants, the national boating fatality rate has plummeted over the past 27 years demonstrating the success of that program. Since 1973, the number of fatalities has been cut in half despite a doubling of the number of boats using our Nation's waterways.
    The Coast Guard believes that over 23,000 lives have been saved since 1973 due to our interventions through the RBS program.
    The States have willingly accepted the greater responsibility for boating safety, but adequate funding to the States is essential. We need the Coast Guard to join ranks with us in seeking the maximum funding authorized for the State boating safety program. This can realistically happen only if the scoring problem which has been identified in the Coast Guard budget could be resolved and when the Coast Guard fully supports our funding through annual budget process. Sadly, we are currently pitted against the Coast Guard over this funding issue in a win/lose situation. It is extremely frustrating and counterproductive to boating safety.
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    It is a well-known problem. It demands a solution, either administratively or legislatively, and we would ask the help of this subcommittee to help the States not only receive funding as authorized, but also to see in the future that our funding is increased to keep abreast of inflation with the current caps on this program and the current level funding that we receive. We are actually slipping behind year after year due to inflation with that program.
    Mr. Chairman, our association is pleased to offer these comments this morning so that some of the lessons learned from the MORNING DEW can turn into positive improvements for boating safety. We stand ready and continue to be active partners with the Coast Guard in this effort. If we can be of further assistance to you or your staff, please let us know.
    Thank you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Mr. Donheffner.
    Captain Scarborough.
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Good afternoon, sir. My name is Dean Scarborough. I am with the Maryland Natural Resources Police, and I am here speaking on behalf of Colonel Rhoads, our superintendent.
    The Maryland Natural Resources Police is the primary State agency responsible for search and rescue on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries, coastal bays and inland waters of Maryland, with more than 2,300 square miles of boating-accessible waterways and 4,400 miles of tidal shoreline. This becomes a monumental responsibility.
    On most of these waters, we share joint jurisdiction with the Coast Guard every time a boating activity takes place on Maryland waters. We have oceangoing ships, tugboats and barges, commercial fishing vessels and all manner of pleasure craft ranging from the mega yachts to the personal water craft, sailboats to sport fishing boats and bass boats to runabouts. With this much diverse activity, the need for a coordinated search and rescue activity is essential.
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    Although many local fire departments and three local jurisdictions have limited abilities to respond to water rescue situations, the vast majority of search and rescue missions are handled by the MNRP and the Coast Guard.
    Given the size and character of the Bay, no single agency can handle all of the calls for service and, by necessity, a close working relationship has developed between the Coast Guard and the MNRP.
    I would like to take the time to give three specific examples of how the Coast Guard and the MNRP have set into motion our MOU by working together, and we have implemented action plans which have enhanced our search and rescue responsibilities on the Chesapeake Bay to include the Potomac River.
    First, on May 3, 1998, the seventh leg of the Whitbread Around the World Sailboat Race started near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and was witnessed by a spectator fleet of more than 6,000 recreational vessels. The Coast Guard and MNRP and other public safety agencies, over a 9-month period, worked and generated an operations order which was based on everyone buying in on the unified incident command system. Everyone did; everyone bought in on the incident command system.
    I firmly believe that if not for this coordinated effort, we would not be able to say that at the end of the day, we did not have a single reported boat accident, boat injury or SAR mission.
    Second, when the Coast Guard is notified of an SAR mission or other marine-related emergency Coast Guard Activities Baltimore Operations Center, makes an initial notification to the MNRP and effective local jurisdiction through a simulcast on the marine radio channel, a fire channel. By doing this, every agency gets the same information at the same time. Implementation of this procedure has minimized notification times and misinformation.
    And if I can digress for a second, something that Mr. Coble had said, that the Coast Guard accepts responsibilities and says, ''Yes, we will do it; we don't have the resources, but we will do it,'' this next group that I want to talk about, MCMERG—through working with MCMERG, Baltimore City Fire Department was able to get this mutual aid fire channel installed in the ops center so that a dispatch can be put out across all of the fire channels, and Natural Resources Police have a fire channel in our communications section, and everyone is notified of an SAR mission at the same time. So we don't have the telephone calls that have to be made.
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    My third and final example of actions taken to enhance SAR capabilities on the Chesapeake Bay is the development of MCMERG, which stands for the Mid-Chesapeake Marine Emergency Response Group. It is an active organization with members from the Coast Guard, MNRP, various career volunteer fire departments, the private sector and many local, State and Federal agencies. MCMERG's mission is to protect life and property and the environment in the mid-Chesapeake Bay region. MCMERG strives to accomplish this mission through cooperative multijurisdictional planning for marine emergency responses, support of marine emergency responders through the development of training programs and facilities and the sharing of research, technical advice and resources among the members of the marine response community.
    Specifically, what do we work on? We have developed a marine firefighting contingency plan for—the Baltimore area is where it started; and if we have a tanker that comes up the Bay and has a fire and has to anchor off the Chesapeake Bay, all of us within MCMERG knows what our job is. It is through MCMERG and the Coast Guard and MNRP and other agencies working together that we were able to develop this working document. Once a month we have our drill to make sure that we are up to date on it.
    Responses to emergency search and rescue missions have improved due to the excellent working relationship at all levels developed over the past years between the Coast Guard, MNRP, and the local jurisdictions. MNRP Superintendent Colonel Rhoads and Coast Guard Activities Baltimore Commander Captain Miller communicate on a regular basis. My counterpart in the Coast Guard, the Operations Response Division Chief Commander Brooks Minnick and I talk together on a weekly basis. We were together last Friday. We have another meeting this Friday on MCMERG and then a meeting on Monday on OpSail 2000, Baltimore. When the tall ships come to Baltimore next June we will be ready.
    The Coast Guard Ops Center Search and Rescue Coordinator for Activities, Baltimore, and the staff of the MNRP Communications Section coordinate effective responses to search and rescue missions almost every day. We have an exchange program where we take some of the younger, newer petty officers that come into the ops center and put them down in our communications center for awhile, and then some of our younger communications technicians, we send them to the Coast Guard Ops Center so that when you sit in each other's chair, you know what each other is trying to accomplish.
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    As long as our memorandum of understanding with the Coast Guard continues to be a living document, and effective communications remain a priority for all of the players, the Coast Guard and MNRP should continue to meet the demands of our search and rescue mission on the waters of the great State of Maryland. Thank you.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you very much, Captain Scarborough. A question about the MCMERG system.
    It is my understanding that Channel 16, that is, the channel used for distress signals of mariners, do you monitor Channel 16? The Coast Guard monitors Channel 16, the Baltimore Fire Department monitors; do you all monitor that channel?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Our communications section does monitor Channel 16. Obviously, Activities, Baltimore, monitors 16, and they are the ones that respond to any calls for service on 16. Yet we monitor it, all of our police boats and our Communications Section, Annapolis.
    Mr. GILCHREST. So your working relationship with the Coast Guard as far as the distress channel is concerned is pretty well organized? You have an MOU? You understand that the distress signal?
    When it comes out, if you hear it, do you wait for the Coast Guard to respond to it?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Yes.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Before you take action?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If—.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Is there ever a time that you respond to the distress signal?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Yes.
    Mr. GILCHREST. How do you communicate and who is going to respond? Is it the distance to the call?
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    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Are you talking about a police boat actually getting underway and going?
    Mr. GILCHREST. Yes.
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Activities, Baltimore, only has five stations in the Chesapeake Bay. They have Still Pond, Curtis Bay, Annapolis, Taylor's Island and St. Indigos—and then Crisfield's, so they have six stations in the Bay.
    We have 200 officers for the State of Maryland. We have probably 30 stations in the Bay.
    There are some calls that both Coast Guard and MNRP respond to. I understood that last night a dredge boat went down off of Tilghman Island. There were no losses of life. A call like that, I can't imagine that the Coast Guard and MNRP both did not respond. I would imagine that both departments responded, as well as the Tilghman Island volunteer fire department—I know that they have a boat—the Talbot County unit, that they would have gone also.
    What we are working on now is 16 is a distress calling frequency. We switch over to 22-Alpha or one of the other working frequencies so that whoever gets on scene first establishes command and coordinates the response of all of the other units, and they are told to go to 22-Alpha or 83-Alpha, depending on which part of the Bay that they are in.
    Mr. GILCHREST. You have a fairly good working relationship for distress calls with the Coast Guard. Would you say that the national distress system works well here? Are there any gaps in the coverage as far as communication is concerned? Do you see a need for improvement in the direction finding equipment, those kinds of things?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I am fairly new to the business. I have only been around for 28 years in conservation and boating law enforcement, and I would say over the years there must have been times when, if a person would have known where they were and you were actually talking to them on the VHF, you would not have to spend hours and hours and hours patrolling the areas because the person all they know is that they are next to a buoy, buoy 4. They don't know which river and they think that they see a bridge and they don't know whether it is the Key Bridge, the Bay Bridge. So a direction finder could prove very beneficial.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Do you have them installed in any facilities in the Chesapeake Bay?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. The Natural Resources Police do not.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Does the Coast Guard?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I don't know the answer to that question.
    Mr. GILCHREST. As far as the direction finding, the State would like to have some of those, as well, I am sure.
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Absolutely. I was listening to the testimony today, and it could save us just hours and hours of searching. We work pretty close as you can tell with the Coast Guard, and our officers train with their people a lot.
    And Mr. Taylor, you were talking about with your Coast Guard days. I didn't know what a Tango-Sierra-Sierra search was—and I am sure you remember—and when the Coast Guard would say we are conducting a Tango-Sierra-Sierra search, my people would say, a what? Well, now my people know.
    We don't do it a Tango-Sierra-Sierra search, but we coordinate our search activities with the Coast Guard, so we are all talking the same language.
    As an example, December 13 and 14 we have the National Fire Academy and the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute sponsored incident management system. The incident command system is kind of changing terminology, but it is the same school, and we are putting six of our field officers along with six Coasties along with six career fire fighters and six volunteer fire fighters that work the Baltimore Annapolis area, and they are going to spend two days in training in the incident management system.
    Mr. GILCHREST. After an incident, can you describe briefly the relationship with the Coast Guard as far as the investigation of that incident?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If it is a recreational vessel, it is Maryland Natural Resource Police's responsibility to do the investigation.
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    If it is an inspected vessel, a commercial vessel, and the Coast Guard has the lead on that, we will offer whatever technical assistance that we have.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Is it a fairly open working relationship, that is clearly defined as far as the investigations are concerned?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. That is a tough question.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Do you see any improvement that could come about as far as your relationship with the Coast Guard through the process of the Coast Guard's investigation of a search and rescue incident?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Yes, sir, I do. I would like to see the MOU to be reviewed periodically and have it—as Admiral Loy said, put it right in that it is going to be reviewed whatever period of time it is.
    Mr. GILCHREST. So that MOU is not reviewed periodically now?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Not to my knowledge. The one that I have on file has not been. If it were not for the staff that is at Activities, Baltimore, I don't know—as Mr. Donheffner has said, the relationship that we have in Maryland is very good. Part of that is because of the people that are there, and I could see a problem as the Coast Guard rotates their people through every 2, 3, 4 years, and you get a new face in there, there could be problems.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Maybe every time there is a rotation there could be a review of the MOU?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Yes, sir.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Donheffner, could you respond to that question dealing with the process of the local Department of Natural Resources working with the Coast Guard as far as investigations are concerned? Could you make some reference to that with the MORNING DEW, and then reference to that working relationship with the State as far as the ''New Carissa'' is concerned in Oregon?
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    Mr. DONHEFFNER. I will try. That is a several different jumps there.
    Actually, the MOUs are supposed to be reviewed on a periodic basis, and I believe it is every 3 years that is supposed to happen. And there was a push in the last several years to get them all updated and current. And as you heard in the earlier testimony, the South Carolina MOU had not been updated for some period of time, and I don't know why.
    But there is direction to the States and to the districts to review those on a periodic basis, and we should be doing that and it needs to be part of that SOP that I tried to refer to earlier.
    I think, moreover, though, having listened to the example from Maryland, if all 50 States had the same relationship with the Coast Guard that Maryland has, we might not be before you today. But I can tell you that in other places it is not happening the way that it is happening in Maryland, and in part, I think it is due to the fact that the memorandums of understanding say good things and the spirit of them is good, but that is between the State and the district commander.
    The district commander needs to push that down his chain of command, just like we need to push it down our chain of command. It needs to be pushed down to the area or the group stations, and then below the group stations to the actual field stations so that they understand that we have this. Currently, I would suggest that many Coast Guard field units are unaware of these memorandums of understanding between the States and the Coast Guard.
    As I referred in my testimony, it is frustrating to us when we don't get word of an SAR case that involves, particularly, a fatality. We are charged with investigating that facility. We can't get information from the Coast Guard that such a case took place. We find out about it from the media; we will read about it in the newspaper or on the radio. And that is a breakdown in the system that needs to be addressed.
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    The Coast Guard is aware of it. We are aware of it, but it is something that—those MOUs, as we follow on the recommendations of the NTSB, and rereview those, it is something that we need to reenergize into those, and it needs to be part of their standard operating procedure.
    Mr. GILCHREST. Would you address—are you familiar with the State MOU or the relationship between the Oregon Department of Natural Resources and the Coast Guard in its investigation of the ''New Carissa''?
    Mr. DONHEFFNER. Mr. Chairman, I have not been directly a part of the ''New Carissa'' saga. Our Department of Environmental Quality has been working hand in hand with them on that. Actually, there were more agencies than you could shake a stick at involved in the ''New Carissa,'' and fortunately my agency that deals with recreational boating was not a part of that station. But the ''New Carissa'' stern is still there, and it will be through the winter at least and for some time to come.
    Mr. GILCHREST. It is a tourist attraction now, thank you very much.
    Mr. Taylor.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, gentlemen, for being so patient and sticking around with us.
    My only question is—and I hope that the answer is no—but do you—the question is: Do you ever sense that because of budgetary restraints or because the Coast Guard has been tasked with so many new duties in the past 25 years, all of the way from fisheries inspections to enforcement of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Mariel boat lift, drug enforcement, do you ever sense that the Coast Guard is so busy with all of these other tasks that they are trying to, by omission or commission, slough off day-to-day search and rescue activities onto your doorstep?
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    And again I am hoping that the answer is no, but I would like to hear the answer.
    Mr. DONHEFFNER. Mr. Chairman and Representative Taylor, I can unequivocally say no. The Coast Guard is there. We could not do without them in the Pacific Northwest and they put it on the line day in and day out, going out to save countless lives.
    I think they are ready to go, but they certainly need the resources. And as you heard earlier this morning, better equipment, better radio equipment, better training. And certainly I think the Admiral hit it on the head. They may get to the point where downsizing has gotten them thin, but in terms of being ready to go, I don't think that there is any hesitancy.
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. My take on it is the search and rescue mission always comes first with the Coast Guard. They may have an awful lot of other duties, but SAR will always take a precedent. That if you are performing just about any other duty and an SAR case comes in, they are underway.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Again, I regret that I did not ask this question of Admiral Loy because you have brought back a memory that one of the challenges of the Coast Guard is, in order to be fair to the poor guy on the icebreaker or ocean station 6 weeks at a time, so that the same people don't get all of the tough duty all of the time, they try to rotate from the icebreaker to an ocean station to a shore station. They never build up the institutional knowledge of a particular part of the country that you and your colleagues will about the Chesapeake Bay.
    How often—if you can tell me, how often do you notice individual boat skippers being rotated in and out? Are they there for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. In Maryland, it became a problem about 10 years ago on operating-while-intoxicated cases that were made. When the Coast Guard would make the initial stop and come across a person who was suspected of operating a vessel while intoxicated, and they did all of the field sobriety testing, one of our officers would come and issue the citation so it could go into State court for criminal prosecution. And the Coast Guard men would not show up because the boarding officer, the citation was written in May, the court was not until September, and the boarding officer was in Oregon. He had been transferred.
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    Well, we no longer have that problem. We realized that that can't happen. It just can't happen. So the boarding officers and the coxswains do, my sense of it is, a 3-year rotation, but they don't clean house every 3 years. A third go out and a third go out.
    When we do like our SWAMP, Safer Waterways and Alcohol Monitor Patrol, and we get multijurisdictions to saturate an area where there have been some boating accidents and there seems to be a problem with recreational boating activity, so we enforce the law that weekend with multijurisdictions. The Coast Guard boarding officers would make sure that those are the ones that are not rotating out that year.
    So we haven't had a problem for years with that happening. It is something that we are very cognizant of. The same thing with the coxswains, the coxswains before they can actually run the boat in the area, they have to have so much underway time in that area. So we don't have a problem with the coxswain calling us and saying, where is such and such.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I appreciate your saying that because contrary to the statement made earlier today, they don't grab somebody and throw them at the helm. They have to go through a local-knowledge-and-qualification course, and that is just not accurate. They are well-trained and they are prepared for their jobs.
    Unfortunately, because of the total needs of the force, they can't just allow one crew to stay in one place forever. It just wouldn't work out.
    Mr. Gilchrest and I had a conversation on the way over to the vote. Mr. Gilchrest was recalling his memories as a United States Marine and how long someone stood watch at the radio.
    In your organization, how long does someone stand watch over the radio at a time?
    Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Eight-hour shift.
    Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Donheffner, is there a norm throughout the organizations that you deal with?
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    Mr. DONHEFFNER. I am not really in a position to respond to that. Our organization doesn't have a watch-standing capability in Oregon. We work with local governments, sheriffs departments and so on, and I can't really testify to you whether it is an 8-hour shift or a 10-hour.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I am going to make a request of you. Would you poll your members so we can get some sort of an idea?
    Mr. DONHEFFNER. I would be happy to.
    Mr. TAYLOR. I would certainly like to know because I think it is important.
    Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions.
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    Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
    Since Mr. Taylor brought it up, when I was in the Marine Corps, when you stood watch, it was a 4-hour shift and you were relieved after 4 hours. You might have some other duties after that 4 hours. But if it was a radio watch, for any one of a number of reasons, it was 4 hours and that was a time frame, I don't know what they do any more, but that was a sense that you were at your heightened best at that time and if you stood any longer, you would get a little less—your ability would begin to diminish a little bit.
    And I do know that the Coast Guard is not funded at the level at which I think, and I think maybe we think, is necessary, given the number of boats that are out there today.
    But, gentlemen, you have been very helpful to us. We appreciate your traveling here today. We wish you a safe return on your journey home.
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    We may have some other questions dealing with the MORNING DEW issue and a variety of search and rescue techniques that the Coast Guard uses from the relationship with the States to investigations to distress signals to implementing a new communications system.
    But we thank you very much for coming here today and appreciate your time and your effort and your energies.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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