MILITARY UPDATE
Coast Guard may shift to Homeland Security Dept.

Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.

By Tom Philpott

Adm. Thomas H. Collins was a week into his four-year tour as Coast Guard commandant when President Bush proposed that the nation's smallest armed force be moved, along with other agencies responsible for the safety of Americans, under a new Department of Homeland Security.

President Bush has proposed moving the Coast Guard out of the Department of Transportation, where it has been for 35 years, and into the new Department of Homeland Security. Advertiser library photo • Mar. 6, 2002

In a June 11 interview, after he and other agency heads had testified before the House Government Reform Committee, Collins said his staff is studying the Coast Guard's shift 35 years ago from the Treasury Department to the then-new Department of Transportation to see what was done right and done wrong.

Deciding where the Coast Guard fits best in the executive branch has been a parlor game at Washington D.C. headquarters for decades. Return it to Treasury. No, shift it to the Justice Department. Why not make it part of the Navy, in peacetime as well as war?

The best fit yet could be under the Department of Homeland Security.

Under Bush's proposal, Homeland Security will be the second largest federal department, after Defense. The president suggests the new department have four divisions. The Coast Guard would be in the Border and Transportation Security Division, along with the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol, and the new Transportation Security Administration.

The other three divisions would focus on emergency preparedness and response; homeland threats from weapons of mass destruction; information analysis and infrastructure protection.

To maximize the Coast Guard's effectiveness, Collins told lawmakers:

• The Coast Guard must be transferred whole.
• It must continue to be a "a military, multi-mission, maritime service" with close ties to the Navy.
• It must keep all current missions, which include port security, maritime drug interdiction, illegal immigration enforcement, search and rescue, environmental protection, boating safety, icebreaking and more.

"We are in good standing on all those issues," said Collins, citing recent conversations with Homeland Security adviser Tom Ridge.

But Collins also cautioned the devil is in the details.

Even before the reorganization announcement, no branch of service had been changed more by Sept. 11 than the Coast Guard. Less than 2 percent of resources were involved in port security before the attacks. That figure soared to 60 percent in two days, as cutters, patrol aircraft and small boats turned to protecting ports and waterways nationwide.

Most cutters and aircraft have returned to other missions such as counter-drug operations and fishery patrols. But 20 percent of the Coast Guard's 2003 budget request is earmarked for port security, a 10-fold increase over last year. The Coast Guard, Collins said, "is rebalancing for a new normalcy."

Proud of its military and law enforcement heritage, dating to 1790, the Coast Guard has never been wild about being under the Transportation Department. It won't be sorry to leave either, it seems.

Collins called it a change whose time has come and said new "security realities necessitate bold action" to protect Americans. The Department of Homeland Security will bring unity of effort and unity of command to the goal of preventing further terrorism on U.S. soil, he said.

There are two critical parts to the move, Collins said. One is organizational and the other is resources. Coast Guard budgets should continue to grow. Its active force is projected to rise from 36,000 this year to 42,000 in three years. Even with that, the Coast Guard will continue to operate by managing risk — putting its limited resources against the greatest threats, the most critical missions.

"We could grow multiple fold and we still couldn't handle 95,000 miles of waterways and 361 ports," Collins said. The private sector has to do more to protect facilities, he said. Meanwhile, Coast Guard missions have been restacked, Collins said.

"People have said, 'This is a new mission for you.' Port Security is not a new mission. We had more people in World War II on the port security mission than we have right now in the entire Coast Guard." But he conceded "the flame on the (port security) burner was turned down real low because of lack of incidents that would stimulate a focus on that."

More money — including a 20 percent rise in dollars for 2003 — will help address an expanded port security mission, he said. "There's a lot of investment in small boats, maritime safety and security teams, additional people at search and rescue stations, contingency plans for captain of the port offices, enhanced secure communications for captains of the port offices."

Sept. 11 revealed problems with inter-agency communications. Coast Guard port security offices, for example, couldn't access the Defense Department's classified e-mail system.

"Building out that basic set of capabilities is terribly important right now," Collins said. "And all that is being done."

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