From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Coast Guard’s Planning for the Retreat
of Arctic Sea Ice

Audio interview by GAO staff with Stephen Caldwell, Director, Homeland
Security & Justice

Related GAO Work: GAO-10-870, Coast Guard: Efforts Underway to
Coordinate with Arctic Stakeholders and Plan for Evolving Arctic
Activity but Numerous Challenges Exist

Released on: October 15, 2010

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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the Government Accountability Office. It's October
15th, 2010. The retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to increase
shipping traffic and human activity in the region. This, in turn, has
increased U.S. strategic interest in the Arctic. A group led by Steve
Caldwell, a Director in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team,
recently examined the Coast Guard’s Arctic planning efforts. GAO's
Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Steve to learn more.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What is the Coast Guard’s current role in the
Arctic?

[ Steve Caldwell: ] The Coast Guard’s role in the Arctic is actually
pretty limited in some ways because the Coast Guard does a lot of things
in the maritime environment. It protects the environment itself, it
rescues people, it makes sure that navigation is carried out safely, and
provides security. And the reason the role is currently limited is
because there isn't a lot of shipping or other human activity going on
in the Arctic right now. But, that is rapidly changing and that's why
it's so important that the Coast Guard start planning ahead for what its
future role will be.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What are some of the groups that the Coast Guard
communicates with on Arctic policy?

[ Steve Caldwell: ]  Well, within the federal government there's a
number of agencies that have a role up there; obviously the Navy in
terms of protecting our country, you have the Department of Interior in
terms of potential oil drilling up there, you have the Department of
Commerce which manages NOAA, which looks at the weather and does
scientific research, and that's just at the federal level. Down at the
state level, the State of Alaska has a number of interests there.
There's also a lot of native Alaskan groups up there which obviously
have lived up there for thousands of years and actually, in their own
way, know a lot more about life in the Arctic and operating up there
than the federal or the state government does.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] One of the recommendations that GAO makes in this
report is with regard to how communication could be improved between the
Coast Guard and some of these groups. Can you talk a little bit more
about that?

[ Steve Caldwell: ] Yeah, we found that within the federal government
there's generally a pretty good level of communication and coordination
going on; in part, due to various interagency task forces and other
bodies. We found that less so at the state and native Alaskan and local
level there, and part of that is because they don't have as many
long-established procedures for working together and, to be honest,
there just isn't the kind of federal presence up there and interaction
up there that you would get because of how isolated many of these
communities are.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Your team traveled to Alaska to collect data and
conduct interviews for this report. Can you talk about that trip and
some of the things you learned there?

[ Steve Caldwell: ] Yeah, we went up there to talk to the Coast Guard
district responsible for Alaska, as well as some of the local Coast
Guard bases. We also talked to the state government and some of the
groups there in Anchorage or Juneau who represent the native Alaskan
groups, as well. In doing so, we talked about the different coordination
levels that were occurring across these groups. And then, my team was
fortunate enough to be up there during one of the Coast Guard’s flights
up to the Arctic, so they got to actually fly in a Coast Guard plane up
there to view just the distances involved and what it was like.  And
they got to see how small and remote some of these communities are in
the Arctic that the Coast Guard would be interacting with.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ]  What steps is the Coast Guard taking to improve its
operations in the Arctic?

[ Steve Caldwell: ] The Coast Guard has a number of steps under way,
just to find out more about the Arctic. As I said, one of the
deficiencies up there is knowing more about the place. The Coast Guard
actually has operations up there, periodic vessels or aircraft that go
up there. The Coast Guard also has a major study going on, called their
High Latitude Study, which is going out and talking to all the different
stakeholders out there, spending time in Alaska, and trying to
determine, for each of the Coast Guard missions, what will it need to do
to develop that mission so that it can accomplish that in the Coast
Guard. And those missions would include search and rescue, environmental
protection, and making sure that marine navigation is safe. I'd also
like to add that the Coast Guard will need substantial resources to
improve its ability to operate up there. And so, one of the things that
the Coast Guard efforts are aimed toward is coming up with estimates to
how many additional ships or planes, or even land-based infrastructure
it would need to operate up there. Between the studies and getting those
resources in the pipeline, it will be many years before the Coast Guard
can operate up there anything near the kinds of capabilities it has in
the lower 48.

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