Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century - Center for ...

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Meeting the defense readiness challenges • Maintain current readiness reporting standards, which track the ability of Coast Guard assets to participate in wartime missions, until the Coast Guard’s new Readiness Reporting System is fully operational. • Allow the Coast Guard Commandant to become a voting member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meeting recapitalization challenges • Ensure that the Coast Guard leadership implements the Acquisition Directorate’s goals as laid out in its Human Capital Strategic Plan • Develop clear progress and performance metrics for the Coast Guard’s recapitalization program. • Require the Coast Guard to provide more comprehensive budget reporting to Congress on all Coast Guard acquisition projects. • Institute a “fly before you buy” policy for the Coast Guard so that USCG acquisitions are properly tested before the service begins buying them in large quantities. • Ensure that all Coast Guard programs are in compliance with the Major Systems Acquisitions Manual, a guide for ensuring that major systems acquisitions projects are better managed and executed, provided that they are also in compliance with DHS acquisition directives. Meeting organizational restructuring challenges • Move forward with necessary congressional approval for the Coast Guard’s command restructuring. • Develop metrics to ensure that the command restructuring promotes effective allocation of resources and assets across the organization and facilitates the Coast Guard’s ability to respond to 21st century threats. 5 Center for American Progress | Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century
• Consider placing the Coast Guard within the Pentagon as part of the Department of the Navy along with the Marines. Meeting climate change challenges • Buy two new polar icebreakers over the next 10 years and invest in a service life extension for the Polar Sea icebreaker in order to maintain U.S. operational capabilities and presence in the Arctic region. • Ensure Coast Guard budgetary control over the refurbished Polar Star icebreaker in the short term to give the Coast Guard greater control over its Arctic operations. • Congress should ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to protect and enhance U.S. interests in the Arctic region. • Complete the Coast Guard’s existing recapitalization and command restructuring initiatives in order to enhance the Coast Guard’s disaster response capabilities. As this report will demonstrate, meeting all five sets of challenges is crucial to the defense of our nation and the security and safety of not just our coastal waterways but also Coast Guard operations in international waters. 6 Center for American Progress | Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century
Page 1 and 2: AP Photo/U.S. CoASt GUArd, Petty of
Page 3 and 4: Contents 1 Introduction and summary
Page 5 and 6: As a result of an already constrain
Page 7: In order to modernize to confront 2
Page 11 and 12: According to the Government Account
Page 13 and 14: This sentiment is shared at the mos
Page 15 and 16: Coast Guard aircraft assets The Coa
Page 17 and 18: The Coast Guard is quick to note th
Page 19 and 20: Evaluate whether to keep legacy ass
Page 21 and 22: such as those posed by climate chan
Page 23 and 24: In 2008, the most recent year for w
Page 25 and 26: Given that the Coast Guard is imple
Page 27 and 28: Defense readiness reporting As one
Page 29 and 30: These ratings should be understood
Page 31 and 32: Instead, it limits the perspectives
Page 33 and 34: As Commandant Allen’s term came t
Page 35 and 36: From the project’s outset, the se
Page 37 and 38: ing low-rate initial production and
Page 39 and 40: schedules of major defense acquisit
Page 41 and 42: Institute a “fly before you buy
Page 43 and 44: Moreover, GAO reports that the Coas
Page 45 and 46: Recommendations The Coast Guard mus
Page 47 and 48: Preparing for climate change’s ch
Page 49 and 50: about their desire to pursue nation
Page 51 and 52: given responsibility for the entire
Page 53 and 54: Conclusion The Coast Guard is, alwa
Page 55 and 56: 29 Government Accountability office
Page 57 and 58: About the authors Lawrence J. Korb

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