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Report to the Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate:

United States General Accounting Office:

GAO:

March 2004:

Coast Guard:

Relationship between Resources Used and Results Achieved Needs to Be 
Clearer:

GAO-04-432:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-04-432, a report to the Subcommittee on Oceans, 
Fisheries, and Coast Guard, Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation, U.S. Senate 

Why GAO Did This Study:

The Coast Guard has responsibility for protecting America’s ports, 
waterways, and waterside facilities from terrorist attacks. At the same 
time, the Coast Guard remains responsible for many other missions 
important to the nation’s interests, such as conducting search and 
rescue and protecting important fishing grounds. 

GAO’s past work found that despite substantial budget increases, the 
Coast Guard’s extensive homeland security responsibilities resulted in 
a reduction in the levels at which the agency’s ship, boat, and 
aircraft resources were applied to non–homeland security programs. GAO 
was asked to update and expand this work by analyzing: the trends in 
resource usage, the trends in performance results, and the implications 
of these trends.

What GAO Found:

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Coast Guard has 
experienced a 32 percent increase in its budget, a 9 percent increase 
in personnel, and major shifts in the hours in which its ships, boats, 
and aircraft are used in the agency’s various programs. Hours these 
resources are used for most homeland security programs greatly exceed 
their pre-September 11 levels, in part because of an infusion of new 
boats, with the number of hours for the ports, waterways, and coastal 
security program up more than twelve-fold. (See fig. below.) 
Conversely, with the exception of hours for ice operations, hours 
dedicated to each non–homeland security program remained below their 
pre-September 11 levels. 

Percentage Change in Boat, Ship, and Aircraft Resource Hours, by 
Program, Pre-September 11 Baseline through Fiscal Year 2003: 

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure] 

The Coast Guard’s performance results—measures used to track each 
program’s annual progress—generally did not mirror the trends in 
resource use. Instead, results for programs GAO reviewed were generally 
stable or improved regardless of the resources applied, and nearly all 
of the programs that GAO reviewed met their performance targets—the 
goals they set out to achieve—in fiscal year 2003. Coast Guard 
officials said that various factors besides resources, such as 
increased operating efficiencies or unexpected events, also affected 
performance results, but they have limited information for assessing 
the impact of these factors. Initial steps have been taken to better 
develop this capability, but many are in early stages, and the Coast 
Guard does not have a time frame for completing the work or assurance 
that they will result in a systematic approach for assessing the 
results.

What GAO Recommends:

GAO recommends that the Coast Guard develop a time frame for proceeding 
with plans to more accurately account for resources expended, and 
ensure that it develops a strategy for identifying the intervening 
factors affecting performance results, and systematically assesses the 
relationship between these factors, resources used, and results 
achieved. The Coast Guard reviewed a draft of this report and generally 
agreed with the facts and recommendations presented, but did not take a 
formal position on the recommendations.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-432.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Margaret Wrightson at 
(415) 904-2200 or wrightsonm@gao.gov.

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter:

Results in Brief:

Background:

Generally, Resource Hours Devoted to Homeland Security Programs Have 
Increased Substantially, while Hours for Other Programs Have Decreased:

Performance Results Remained Largely Unchanged or Improved for the 
Eight Programs We Assessed:

More Systematic Understanding of Resource Usage and Performance Results 
Is Important for Management and Accountability:

Conclusions:

Recommendations:

Agency Comments:

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:

Appendix II: Program-by-Program Trends in Coast Guard Resource Hours:

Programs with Increasing Resource Hours:

Programs with Declining Resource Hours:

Programs with Stable Resource Hours:

Appendix III: Program-by-Program Trends in Coast Guard Performance 
Measures:

Programs with Generally Stable Performance Results:

Programs with Improved Performance Results:

Appendix IV: Examples of Coast Guard Approaches to Enhance Operational 
Efficiency:

Intelligence:

Technology:

Tactics:

Partnerships:

Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contacts:

Staff Acknowledgments:

Related GAO Products:

Tables:

Table 1: Homeland Security and Non-Homeland Security Programs by 
Mission Area (as of March 2004):

Table 2: Performance Results by Program from Fiscal Year 2001 through 
Fiscal Year 2003:

Table 3: Performance Targets by Program for Fiscal Year 2003:

Table 4: Selected Examples of Operational Efficiencies Cited by Coast 
Guard Officials:

Table 5: Selected Examples of Actions Under Way to Improve Linkages 
between Resources and Performance Results:

Table 6: Coast Guard Performance Measures by Program:

Table 7: Selected Examples of Intelligence Efforts:

Table 8: Selected Examples of Technology Efforts:

Table 9: Selected Examples of New Tactics:

Table 10: Selected Examples of Coast Guard Partnership Efforts:

Figures:

Figure 1: Total Resource Hours for All Coast Guard Programs:

Figure 2: Percentage Change in Resource Hours, by Program, Pre-
September 11 Baseline to Fiscal Year 2003:

Figure 3: Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security Resource Hours:

Figure 4: Undocumented Migrant Interdiction Resource Hours:

Figure 5: Defense Readiness Resource Hours:

Figure 6: Ice Operations Resource Hours:

Figure 7: Foreign Fish Enforcement Resource Hours:

Figure 8: Living Marine Resources Resource Hours:

Figure 9: Illegal Drug Interdiction Resource Hours:

Figure 10: Search and Rescue Resource Hours:

Figure 11: Aids to Navigation Resource Hours:

Figure 12: Undocumented Migrant Interdiction Performance Results and 
Target by Fiscal Year:

Figure 13: Illegal Drug Interdiction Performance Results and Targets by 
Fiscal Year:

Figure 14: Ice Operations Performance Results and Targets by Fiscal 
Year:

Figure 15: Living Marine Resources Performance Results and Target by 
Fiscal Year:

Figure 16: Search and Rescue Performance Results and Target by Fiscal 
Year:

Figure 17: Foreign Fish Enforcement Performance Results and Target by 
Fiscal Year:

Figure 18: Aids to Navigation Performance Results and Targets by Fiscal 
Year:

Figure 19: Defense Readiness Performance Results and Target by Fiscal 
Year:

Abbreviations:

CAG: collisions, allisions, and groundings:

DHS: Department of Homeland Security:

DOD: Department of Defense:

EEZ: Exclusive Economic Zone:

GPRA: Government Performance and Results Act:

HITRON: Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron:

HSAS: Homeland Security Advisory System:

IACM: Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement:

LED: light-emitting diode:

MARSEC: Maritime Security Condition System:

NYPD: New York Police Department:

PWCS: ports, waterways, and coastal security:

VMS: Vessel Monitoring System:

United States General Accounting Office:

Washington, DC 20548:

March 22, 2004:

The Honorable Olympia J. Snowe: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable John F. Kerry: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, and Coast Guard: 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: 
United States Senate:

These are challenging times for the Coast Guard. As the lead federal 
agency for maritime homeland security within the Department of Homeland 
Security, the Coast Guard is facing extraordinary, heightened 
responsibilities to protect America's ports, waterways, and waterside 
facilities from terrorist attacks and from becoming an avenue for 
terrorists to bring weapons of mass destruction into the country. The 
Coast Guard also remains responsible for many other missions important 
to the nation's interests, such as helping stem the flow of illegal 
drugs and illegal migration, protecting important fishing grounds, and 
responding to marine pollution. These expanded responsibilities come at 
a time when budget resources are increasingly constrained, making 
prioritization among competing agencies and programs an even more 
critical factor in congressional decision making. Our past work has 
shown that notwithstanding substantial increases in the Coast Guard's 
budget to accommodate its increased responsibilities, the Coast Guard's 
emphasis on homeland security has resulted in a reduction in the level 
of resources devoted to non-homeland security missions.

This report updates our earlier work on Coast Guard efforts to balance 
its homeland security and non-homeland security missions.[Footnote 1] 
At the committee's request, we have expanded the scope of the prior 
work to examine both the trends in resource usage and corresponding 
performance results between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. Specifically, 
as agreed with your offices, this report addresses the following 
questions:

* What are the trends in resource usage for each Coast Guard program 
within its homeland security and non-homeland security mission areas?

* What are the trends in performance results for each Coast Guard 
program?

* What are the implications of these trends for Coast Guard management 
and accountability?

To answer these questions, we analyzed Coast Guard data, reviewed 
documents and records, and visited Coast Guard installations to 
determine how operations were being affected. Because the Coast Guard 
does not have a system that tracks how its personnel spend their time 
by program, our work on resource usage focused on resource hour data 
showing the number of hours that Coast Guard ships, boats and aircraft 
were used in conducting each Coast Guard program. This approach, while 
covering a considerable amount of the Coast Guard's activities, could 
not completely account for all of the resources used to achieve program 
results. Most notably, two of the Coast Guard's 11 programs--marine 
safety and marine environmental protection--are largely carried out 
without using ships, boats, and aircraft, and thus much of the effort 
dedicated toward these programs is not captured in the resource hour 
data.[Footnote 2] Our work on performance results focused on data that 
the Coast Guard collects and analyzes under the Government Performance 
and Results Act (GPRA) to determine how well the agency is achieving 
its goals.[Footnote 3] For this part of our work, sufficient data were 
available to fully analyze 7 of the Coast Guard's 11 programs.[Footnote 
4] For those programs that we could not fully analyze, because they had 
only resource hour information or performance data but not both, we 
provided limited information in relevant portions of this report. We 
conducted our work at Coast Guard headquarters and at five of the Coast 
Guard's nine districts that span three coasts--East, West, and Gulf. 
Our work, which was conducted from June 2003 through March 2004, was 
done in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. A detailed description of our scope and methodology appears 
in appendix I.

Results in Brief:

Total Coast Guard resource hours increased 39 percent over their pre-
September 11 levels in fiscal year 2003, and there have been major 
shifts in the distribution of these resource hours among the various 
Coast Guard programs as well. Not unexpectedly, homeland security 
programs were the greatest beneficiaries of the increased hours, as 
more vessels devoted to homeland security have been added to the fleet. 
Conversely, the resource hours for most non-homeland security programs 
have decreased as many more resources are now generally devoted to 
protecting the nation's ports and waterways. For example, resource 
hours for several programs that the Coast Guard has traditionally 
conducted, such as living marine resources, and search and rescue, 
declined by 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

The performance results--or indicators--that track a program's progress 
from year to year--remained stable or improved for seven of the eight 
programs we reviewed, when comparing fiscal year 2001 and 2003 results. 
Although there was some fluctuation in fiscal year 2002, four programs 
had stable performance results, three were improved and one had pending 
results for fiscal year 2003. For example, the living marine resources 
program--whose performance is assessed by measuring the percentage of 
fishermen that the Coast Guard found in compliance with certain fishing 
regulations--had stable results with a consistent compliance rate of 
about 99 to 97 percent between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. Results for 
the aids to navigation program--which helps to ensure the safe passage 
of vessels--fluctuated in fiscal year 2002, but showed improvement when 
comparing fiscal years 2001 and 2003, as the number of vessel incidents 
(such as collisions and groundings) decreased. In addition to 
demonstrating stable or improved results in fiscal year 2003, five of 
the eight programs we reviewed also met their pre-established 
performance targets--the goals they aim to achieve each year. For 
example, the search and rescue program's target for fiscal year 2003 
was to save 85 percent of mariners in distress and the program achieved 
this goal by saving over 87 percent of them. Two programs, defense 
readiness and undocumented migrant interdiction, missed their 
performance targets in fiscal year 2003--defense readiness achieved a 
78 percent readiness status result with a 100 percent target, and 
illegal migrant interdiction missed its target of interdicting 87 
percent of illegal migrants by less than two percentage points. Results 
for the drug interdiction program were not yet available for fiscal 
year 2003.

When comparing the trends in the Coast Guard's use of resources and its 
performance results, the relationship between resources used and 
results was not always what might be expected--that is, the resources 
expended and performance results achieved did not have consistent 
direction of movement and sometimes bore an opposite relationship. For 
example, performance remained stable for four programs, even though 
resources dedicated to them increased or decreased; and three programs 
demonstrated improved results despite decreases in resource hours for 
two of them. These results have important implications for resource 
management and accountability especially given the Coast Guard's 
limited ability to explain them. In particular, the results prompt a 
logical question as to why, despite substantial changes in the resource 
hours of a number of programs over the period we examined, the 
corresponding performance results for these programs were not 
necessarily affected in the same way--that is, they did not rise or 
fall in keeping with changes in resources. The Coast Guard cannot say 
with any assurance why this occurred. For example, the resource hours 
invested in the migrant interdiction program increased by 81 percent 
and its performance results--which measure the program's success in 
interdicting illegal migrants entering the United States by sea--
remained stable when comparing fiscal year 2001with fiscal year 2003. 
Likewise, search and rescue resource hours dropped by 22 percent, but 
the measurement of the Coast Guard's ability to save mariners in 
distress remained stable for the same period. These results suggest 
that performance was likely affected by factors other than resources. 
One set of factors, cited by the Coast Guard as helping to keep 
performance steady despite resource decreases, involved strategies such 
as using new technology, better operational tactics, improved 
intelligence, and stronger partnering efforts. For example, the Coast 
Guard identified improved intelligence and technology, along with 
efforts to partner more closely with other federal agencies, as 
contributors to its stable performance results in protecting living 
marine resources despite a decrease in hours dedicated to the program. 
Coast Guard officials also pointed to another set of factors, which are 
largely beyond its control (such as severe weather conditions), to 
explain performance results that did not improve despite resource 
increases. However the supporting data the Coast Guard was able to 
provide to account for the effects of these two sets of factors was 
limited. The Coast Guard has initiatives under way to better measure 
its resource usage and manage program results, but many of these 
initiatives are still in early stages of development and some do not 
have a time frame for their completion. In addition, the Coast Guard 
does not have a systematic approach for ensuring that these efforts 
will allow the agency to link its resources and performance results. As 
we have reported in previous studies on performance management, 
agencies that understand the linkage between resources expended and 
performance results achieved are better positioned to allocate and 
manage their resources effectively. And by building this type of 
environmental assessment into its strategic planning process, 
organizations can stay focused on their long-term goals even as they 
make changes in the way they intend to achieve them. An ability to 
understand these types of effects is important to the Coast Guard and 
the Congress to make informed decisions about resource needs.

We are recommending that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland 
Security direct the Commandant of the Coast Guard to (1) develop a time 
frame for expeditiously proceeding with initiatives to account more 
completely for resources expended and (2) ensure that through its 
planning process the agency develops a strategy for identifying the 
intervening factors that affect performance results, and systematically 
assesses the relationship between these factors, resources used, and 
results achieved.

Background:

Now a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Coast 
Guard has grown considerably in the aftermath of the September 11 
terrorist attacks. The agency's operating budget in fiscal year 2003 
was $4.9 billion--an increase of 32 percent in real terms over its 
fiscal year 2001 operating budget.[Footnote 5] Corresponding to this 
funding increase, the agency's personnel numbers have also grown 
significantly, and at the end of fiscal year 2003, the Coast Guard had 
almost 44,500 full time positions about 9 percent more than it had in 
fiscal year 2001.[Footnote 6]

The Coast Guard has responsibilities that fall under 11 programs within 
two broad missions--homeland security and non-homeland 
security.[Footnote 7] (See table 1.) While maritime homeland security 
duties are not necessarily new to the Coast Guard, the agency's 
resources used for this mission area prior to September 11, 2001, had 
been minimal when compared with most of its other programs.[Footnote 8] 
After September 11, the Coast Guard focused much more of its efforts on 
homeland security and established a new program area--the ports, 
waterways, and coastal security program (PWCS).

Table 1: Homeland Security and Non-Homeland Security Programs by 
Mission Area (as of March 2004):

Mission and program; Homeland security mission: Ports, waterways, and 
coastal security; 
Activities and functions of each program: Conducting harbor patrols, 
vulnerability assessments, intelligence gathering and analysis, and 
other activities to prevent terrorist attacks and minimize the damage 
from attacks that occur.

Mission and program; Homeland security mission: Illegal drug 
interdiction[A]; 
Activities and functions of each program: Deploying cutters and 
aircraft in high drug trafficking areas and gathering intelligence to 
reduce the flow of illegal drugs through maritime transit routes.

Mission and program; Homeland security mission: Undocumented migrant 
interdiction[A]; 
Activities and functions of each program: Deploying cutters and 
aircraft to reduce the flow of undocumented migrants entering the 
United States by maritime routes.

Mission and program; Homeland security mission: Defense readiness; 
Activities and functions of each program: Participating with the 
Department of Defense (DOD) in global military operations, deploying 
cutters and other boats in and around harbors to protect DOD force 
mobilization operations.

Mission and program; Homeland security mission: Other law enforcement 
(foreign fish enforcement)[B]; 
Activities and functions of each program: Protecting United States 
fishing grounds by ensuring that foreign fishermen do not illegally 
harvest United States fish stocks.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Search and rescue; 
Activities and functions of each program: Operating multi-mission 
stations, and a national distress and response communication system, 
conducting search and rescue operations for mariners in distress.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Living marine 
resources; 
Activities and functions of each program: Enforcing domestic fishing 
laws and regulations through inspections and fishery patrols.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Aids to 
navigation; 
Activities and functions of each program: Managing United States 
waterways and providing a safe, efficient and navigable marine 
transportation system; 
maintaining the extensive system of navigation aids; 
monitoring marine traffic through vessel traffic service centers.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Ice operations; 
Activities and functions of each program: Conducting polar operations 
to facilitate the movement of critical goods and personnel in support 
of scientific and national security activity; 
conducting domestic icebreaking operations to facilitate year-round 
commerce; 
conducting international ice operations to track icebergs below the 
48th north latitude.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Marine 
environmental protection; 
Activities and functions of each program: Preventing and responding to 
marine oil and chemical spills; 
preventing the illegal dumping of plastics and garbage in United States 
waters; 
preventing biological invasions by aquatic nuisance species.

Mission and program; Non-homeland security mission; Marine safety; 
Activities and functions of each program: Setting standards and 
conducting vessel inspections to better ensure the safety of passengers 
and crew aboard commercial vessels, cruise ships, ferries, and other 
passenger vessels; 
partnering with states and boating safety organizations to reduce 
recreational boating deaths. 

Source: Coast Guard.

[A] In previous GAO work, these programs were identified as non-
homeland security missions. However, with the implementation of the 
Homeland Security Act, the Coast Guard considers these programs to be 
under its homeland security mission. Prior to the passage of the act, 
the Coast Guard did not categorize its programs into non-homeland 
security and homeland security missions.

[B] Foreign fish enforcement is a key subset of the Coast Guard's other 
law enforcement program. For the purposes of this report, we consider 
only the resource hours and performance results associated with the 
foreign fish aspect of the other law enforcement program. We 
subsequently refer to this program as foreign fish enforcement.

[End of table]

To achieve its wide range of responsibilities, the Coast Guard is 
organized into two major commands that are responsible for its overall 
mission performance--one in the Pacific Ocean area and the other in the 
Atlantic area, including the Gulf of Mexico region. These commands are 
divided into nine districts, which in turn are organized into a number 
of groups, marine safety offices, and air stations.[Footnote 9] Groups 
provide more localized command and control of field units and 
resources, such as multi mission stations, and patrol boats. Marine 
safety offices are located at coastal ports and on inland waterways, 
and are responsible for the overall safety and security of maritime 
activities and for environmental protection in their geographic areas. 
Air stations conduct search and rescue, law enforcement, environmental 
response, ice, and defense operations.[Footnote 10]

The Coast Guard has systems in place to track its resource hours and 
performance results for each of its program areas. Resource 
hours,[Footnote 11] which are accumulated and reported by quarter, 
represent the time spent by the Coast Guard's major assets--ships, 
boats, and aircraft (helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft)--conducting 
its programs. The Coast Guard measures its performance, that is, what 
these resource hours and its personnel hours accomplish, using a set of 
performance measures developed in accordance with the Government 
Performance and Results Act. The Coast Guard uses these performance 
measures and their corresponding goals to annually track the agency's 
progress in attaining its strategic goals.

Generally, Resource Hours Devoted to Homeland Security Programs Have 
Increased Substantially, while Hours for Other Programs Have Decreased:

Total Coast Guard resource hours devoted to its various programs have 
substantially increased since the terrorist attacks, and a major 
redistribution of these hours has also occurred, as many hours shifted 
from non-homeland security programs to homeland security programs. 
Total Coast Guard resource hours (for boats, ships, and aircraft 
devoted to all programs) increased by 39 percent from a level of about 
534,000 resource hours prior to the terrorist attacks to about 741,000 
hours by the end of fiscal year 2003.[Footnote 12] Coast Guard 
officials told us that the addition of more ships, boats, and personnel 
contributed to the overall increase in resource hours. In particular, 
one official noted the acquisition of smaller boats as being a 
contributor to the increase in ports, waterways, and coastal security 
hours in fiscal year 2003.

As figure 1 shows, homeland security resource hours accounted for all 
of the increase, while total hours for non-homeland security programs 
decreased.

Figure 1: Total Resource Hours for All Coast Guard Programs:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

On a program-by-program basis, there is a marked difference in the 
degree to which resource levels rose or declined. (See fig. 2.) Of the 
various programs, the ports, waterways, and coastal security program 
saw by far the largest increase, over 1,200 percent. Before the 
September 11 attacks, this program was a small component of the Coast 
Guard, with a baseline level of slightly more than 19,000 hours--less 
than 4 percent of the Coast Guard's overall resource hours.[Footnote 
13] By the end of fiscal year 2003, the Coast Guard had expended nearly 
255,000 resource hours on this mission, representing about 34 percent 
of total resource hours. By contrast, resource hours spent during the 
same period on the illegal drug interdiction program declined from 
slightly less than 123,000 hours to just under 70,000 hours, a decrease 
of 44 percent. (See appendix II for the program-by-program trends by 
year.):

Figure 2: Percentage Change in Resource Hours, by Program, Pre-
September 11 Baseline to Fiscal Year 2003:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Coast Guard officials cited a number of factors that contributed to the 
actual resource hours expended for its programs each year. One key 
factor, noted by several officials, is the impact of unplanned events 
on planned resource hours. For instance, although the agency may have 
planned to spend resource hours in a certain way at the beginning of a 
fiscal year, the actual resource hours expended often reflected the 
unexpected circumstances or events to which the Coast Guard had to 
react in that year. For example, when the nation shifts to an orange, 
or high-alert, status,[Footnote 14] the Coast Guard concentrates more 
of its resources on security-related activities than initially planned. 
Severe weather, such as hurricanes, can also cause shifts away from 
planned resource use to spending time repositioning navigation markers 
that shift from their proper locations as a result of storms. The war 
in Iraq is another example of where resource hours shifted from planned 
usage when the Coast Guard deployed assets--11 ships, 24 boats, 2 
aircraft, and 1,195 personnel in all--to the Persian Gulf; yet when the 
fiscal year 2003 budget was developed, the Coast Guard had anticipated 
using these assets for other programs.

The Coast Guard's Commandant noted that reductions in resource hours 
did not necessarily reflect changes in the agency's program emphasis. 
For example, while resource hours devoted to the search and rescue 
program declined, this program remained a top agency priority. Coast 
Guard officials suggested that the decline in resource hours for this 
program was due to three key factors. First, search and rescue is 
largely demand driven, and as a result, its hours largely reflect the 
number of incidents referred to the Coast Guard for action. The Coast 
Guard received fewer distress calls; therefore, resource hours 
decreased. Second, Successful preventive efforts such as fishing vessel 
safety examinations and boating safety classes may have prevented 
mariners from getting into distress--again, resulting in fewer distress 
calls to the Coast Guard. Third, Coast Guard boats were more frequently 
on security patrols, and as a result, these boats were sometimes closer 
to the search and rescue incident and thus could respond more quickly.

Performance Results Remained Largely Unchanged or Improved for the 
Eight Programs We Assessed:

For the period we examined, the Coast Guard's performance results for 
the eight programs we reviewed remained either largely unchanged or 
improved. In addition, in fiscal year 2003, most of the programs also 
met their pre-established performance targets.[Footnote 15] Still, some 
caution is needed in interpreting the Coast Guard's performance results 
because of limitations in some of the performance measures.

All Assessed Programs Had Stable or Improved Performance Results:

Of the eight programs we reviewed for performance,[Footnote 16] four 
showed relatively stable performance results, although some minor 
fluctuations existed. For example, one of the stable programs, search 
and rescue, which measures its results as the percentage of lives saved 
each year, varied only a few percentage points from a low of 84.2 
percent in fiscal year 2001 to a high of 87.7 percent in fiscal year 
2003. Three programs (foreign fish enforcement, aids to navigation, and 
defense readiness), demonstrated improved results when comparing fiscal 
year 2001 and fiscal year 2003, although their results fluctuated a 
little within this period.[Footnote 17] We were unable to assess the 
results of the remaining program--illegal drug interdiction--because 
its performance results for fiscal year 2003 were not yet available at 
the time we did our analysis. (See table 2.) Appendix III provides a 
detailed summary of the performance results for all programs.

Table 2: Performance Results by Program from Fiscal Year 2001 through 
Fiscal Year 2003:

Program: Stable results; 
Undocumented migrant interdiction; 
Performance measure: Percentage of interdicted illegal migrants 
entering the United States through maritime means; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 82.5%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 88.3%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 85.3%.

Program: Stable results; 
Ice operations; 
Performance measure: Number of waterway closure days; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 7; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 7; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 7.

Program: Stable results; 
Living marine resources; 
Performance measure: Percentage of fishermen found in compliance with 
regulations; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 98.6%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 97.3%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 97.1%.

Program: Stable results; 
Search and rescue; 
Performance measure: Percentage of distressed mariners' lives saved; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 84.2%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 84.4%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 87.7%.

Program: Improving results; 
Foreign fish enforcement; 
Performance measure: Number of detected Exclusive Economic Zone 
(EEZ)[A] incursions by foreign fishing vessels; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 219; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 250; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 153.

Program: Improving results; 
Aids to navigation; 
Performance measure: Number of collisions, allisions,[B] and 
groundings; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 1,677; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 1,936; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 1,523.

Program: Improving results; 
Defense readiness; 
Performance measure: Percentage of time units meet combat readiness 
status at C-2 level[C]; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 67%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 70%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: 78%.

Program: Pending results; 
Illegal drug interdiction; 
Performance measure: Percentage of cocaine seized out of total 
estimated cocaine entering the United States through maritime means[D]; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2001: 11.7%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2002: 10.6%; 
Performance results by fiscal year: 2003: NA[E]. 

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard performance data.

[A] The EEZ is defined by the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 
Conservation and Management Act as an area within 200 miles of U.S. 
shores in which U.S. citizens have primary harvesting rights to fish 
stocks.

[B] The Coast Guard defines an "allision" as a vessel collision with a 
fixed object.

[C] According to Coast Guard information, the C-2 level is defined as 
the level at which each unit possesses the resources and is trained to 
undertake most of the wartime missions for which it is organized or 
designed.

[D] The illegal drug interdiction performance measure only includes 
cocaine as cocaine has an analyzed flow rate, and it constitutes the 
preponderance of illegal drugs entering the United States through 
maritime means (that is, cocaine shipments are measured in tons while 
heroin, marijuana, and other illegal drugs are measured in pounds).

[E] The illegal drug interdiction performance result for fiscal year 
2003 will not be calculated until the Interagency Assessment of Cocaine 
Movement (IACM) publishes its flow rate in spring of 2004.

[End of table]

Most Assessed Programs Also Met Their Performance Targets:

Another way that the Coast Guard assesses its performance is by 
determining whether programs have achieved their performance targets 
each year. These targets--which represent the goals that the programs 
aim to achieve each year--were met in fiscal year 2003 by five of the 
eight programs we reviewed.[Footnote 18] (See table 3.) Two of the 
programs that did not meet their performance targets were defense 
readiness and undocumented migrant interdiction. Coast Guard officials 
reported that the defense readiness program did not meet its target, in 
part, because of equipment problems associated with operating aging 
ships, and unit training deficiencies, such as cutters not having 
sufficient training time to perform gunnery exercises.[Footnote 19] As 
for the undocumented migrant interdiction program, Coast Guard 
officials reported that they consider their results to be a minimal 
decline in light of the substantial increase in the number of migrants 
they successfully interdicted during the year.[Footnote 20] For 
example, of the key migrant populations tracked by the Coast Guard, 
about 5,300 illegal migrants were interdicted in fiscal year 2003 
compared with about 2,400 in fiscal year 2002, an increase of 120 
percent.[Footnote 21] We could not determine whether the remaining 
program, illegal drug interdiction, met its performance target because 
the performance results for fiscal year 2003 were not yet available at 
the time we conducted our work. (See app. III for a detailed summary of 
the performance targets and results for all programs.):

Table 3: Performance Targets by Program for Fiscal Year 2003:

Program: Undocumented migrant interdiction; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Interdict or deter at least 87 
percent of illegal migrants entering the United States through maritime 
means; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 85.3%; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: No.

Program: Illegal drug interdiction; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Seize 20.7 percent or more of 
cocaine entering the United States through maritime means; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: To be determined[A]; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: To be determined[A].

Program: Ice operations; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Limit waterway closures to 8 days 
during severe winters; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 7 days; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: Yes.

Program: Living marine resources; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Raise percentage of fishermen 
found in compliance with regulations to 97 percent or above; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 97.1%; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: Yes.

Program: Search and rescue; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Save at least 85 percent of all 
mariners in distress; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 87.7%; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: Yes.

Program: Foreign fish enforcement; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Reduce number of detected EEZ 
incursions by foreign fishing vessels to 202 or less; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 153 incursions; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: Yes.

Program: Aids to navigation; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Reduce five-year average of 
collisions, allisions, and groundings (CAGs) to 2,010 or less; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 1,523 CAGs; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: Yes.

Program: Defense readiness; 
Fiscal year 2003 performance targets: Maintain an overall combat 
readiness status at C-2 level or better for 100 percent of assets; 
Fiscal year 2003 result: 78%; 
Target met in fiscal year 2003?: No. 

Source: GAO analysis of Coast Guard performance data.

[A] The illegal drug interdiction performance result for fiscal year 
2003 will not be available until spring of 2004.

[End of table]

Continuing Efforts Are Under Way to Strengthen Performance Measures:

While the Coast Guard has been recognized in the past for its 
performance measurement efforts,[Footnote 22] Coast Guard officials 
also recognize that, as is true for all organizations, continual 
improvements are needed in their measures, and they are working toward 
these enhancements. And while the Coast Guard's performance for the 
majority of its programs was favorable in fiscal year 2003, there are 
reasons to be cautious in interpreting these results. That is, Coast 
Guard officials acknowledged that limitations exist in the measures and 
efforts are under way to improve their clarity and 
objectivity.[Footnote 23] Coast Guard officials provided the following 
illustrative examples:

* Some measures do not currently distinguish among critical factors--
such as how certain items are weighted--within the measure. For 
example, Coast Guard officials stated that the foreign fish enforcement 
performance measure--which counts the number of times foreign fishing 
vessels are identified as illegally entering into the United States 
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)--does not distinguish the severity of 
each entry. As a result, a single fisherman in a small boat catching a 
few fish in the Western Pacific is weighted equally with a large 
foreign trawler in Alaskan waters that is harvesting fish by the tons. 
Each of these events would be counted as one incursion even though 
their impact could be significantly different. The Coast Guard is 
currently reevaluating the Fisheries Enforcement Strategic Plan to 
address this issue.

* Some measures are affected by fluctuations in demand; thus, the 
results may not directly reflect agency efforts. For example, the 
foreign fish enforcement performance measure--which counts the number 
of EEZ incursions by foreign fishing vessels--can be affected by 
oceanic and climatic shifts that can cause significant fluctuations in 
the migratory patterns of fish. As a result, EEZ encroachments could 
increase (or decrease) as fishermen follow their intended catch across 
EEZ boundaries (or stay within their own territories), depending on 
where the fish are located. According to Coast Guard officials, this 
type of migratory factor can influence the number of encroachments in a 
given year, and they are reviewing issues such as these to refine the 
measure. They plan to have a revised target in early 2004.

* Coast Guard officials reported that some measures might have 
inaccurate estimates that affect the quality of the measure. For 
example, the undocumented migrant interdiction performance measure 
contains estimated information, such as the number of illegal migrants 
entering the United States.[Footnote 24] As a result, the Coast Guard 
reported that the estimated number of potential migrants, which is a 
key part of this performance measure, might contain significant error. 
Coast Guard officials explained that they are working to strengthen 
this measure, in part through an external program evaluation that will 
be completed by the summer of 2004. At this time, however, they believe 
their current measure is the best available.

* Some performance measures rely on the Coast Guard's presence or 
direct observation of events. A change in Coast Guard presence could 
skew results for these indicators. For example, an increased Coast 
Guard presence in a fishing area could result in more incursions being 
observed, and a decreased presence could result in fewer observations. 
To the extent such factors come into play, the results may be 
inaccurate. For example, the number of incursions might not have 
increased or decreased, but instead the Coast Guard simply had greater 
or lesser ability to identify them. The Coast Guard has acknowledged 
that some of its measures are subject to these weaknesses and directed 
its field personnel to be mindful of these issues in its planning 
guidance.

One measure--for illegal drug interdiction--was recently refined and 
illustrates how the Coast Guard can improve upon and incorporate better 
performance measures into this refinement process. The illegal drug 
interdiction performance measure was recently reevaluated because the 
former measure--cocaine seizure rates--did not adequately account for 
cocaine thrown overboard or destroyed by smugglers. Consequently, the 
Coast Guard changed its illegal drug interdiction performance measure 
for fiscal year 2004 to measure the cocaine removal rate--a measure 
that includes not only the cocaine seized but also cocaine that was 
jettisoned or lost. Coast Guard officials stated that the new measure, 
which encompasses both the cocaine lost to the smuggler (through 
seizures, jettison, burning, and other non-recoverable events) as well 
as the cocaine seized, will more accurately reflect the Coast Guard's 
counterdrug efforts and results.

More Systematic Understanding of Resource Usage and Performance Results 
Is Important for Management and Accountability:

While resource hours changed substantially for some programs between 
fiscal years 2001 and 2003, their corresponding performance results did 
not necessarily reflect the direction of these changes. In particular, 
performance remained stable for four programs even though resources 
increased for two and decreased for the other two. This suggests that 
performance results were likely affected by factors other than usage of 
these resources. One set of factors, cited by the Coast Guard as 
helping to keep performance steady in some programs despite decreases 
in resources, involves strategies such as using new technology, better 
tactics and operations, and stronger partnering with other agencies. 
Coast Guard officials also pointed to a set of other factors, often 
called externalities, which are largely beyond its control but have the 
ability to negatively affect performance results despite resource 
increases. For the Coast Guard, such externalities include such 
developments as an increase in the number of immigrants seeking to 
enter the country by sea and unpredictable or severe weather 
conditions. The Coast Guard has a variety of initiatives under way to 
better measure resource usage and manage program results. However, many 
of these initiatives are still in early stages of development and some 
do not have a time frame for their completion. In addition, the Coast 
Guard does not have a systematic framework that would allow it to 
better understand how the various factors are affecting the link 
between resources and performance. As we have reported in the past, 
agencies that understand the linkage between expended resources and 
performance results are better able to allocate and manage their 
resources effectively.

Coast Guard Officials Cite Various Factors Affecting Consistency 
between Expended Resources and Results Achieved:

For most of the Coast Guard programs we reviewed, there was no clear 
relationship between the change in resource hours from pre-September 11 
levels to fiscal year 2003 levels and the performance results reported 
for the program between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. One might expect 
that a significant change in resource hours over time would result in a 
corresponding change in performance results. However, for most of the 
seven programs we reviewed with complete performance results in fiscal 
year 2003, this was not the case.[Footnote 25] For example, the four 
programs with stable performance results were evenly divided--two 
(undocumented migrant interdiction and ice operations) had increased 
resource hours of at least 44 percent, and two (living marine resources 
and search and rescue) had decreased resource hours of at least 22 
percent. Similarly, of the remaining three programs, two (foreign fish 
enforcement and aids to navigation) had improved results despite 
decreases in their resource hours. The only program with consistent 
direction of movement between its resource hours and performance 
results was the defense readiness program, which had improved results 
and a 518 percent resource hour increase.

Coast Guard officials acknowledged the apparent disconnect between 
resource hours expended and performance results achieved and offered 
two types of explanations for it. The first involved operational 
efficiencies--strategies that essentially allowed the Coast Guard to 
accomplish the same or greater results with fewer resources. These 
efficiencies were of four main types--improved technology, improved 
tactics, stronger partnerships, and improved intelligence. A limited 
sample of these efficiencies, described by Coast Guard officials during 
our visits to Coast Guard districts, is highlighted in table 4, and 
additional efficiencies are discussed in more detail in appendix IV. 
Many of these efficiencies stemmed from internal changes within the 
Coast Guard, such as using new equipment, a different procedure, or a 
new organizational alignment to do a task more quickly. However, some 
of the efficiencies, particularly those related to partnerships, 
involved the use of non-Coast Guard resources as well.

Table 4: Selected Examples of Operational Efficiencies Cited by Coast 
Guard Officials:

Improved technology: New ships. The recapitalization of the buoy tender 
fleet offers a number of improvements, including greater transit speed, 
reducing travel time and allowing more work to be done in a day; a 
larger buoy deck, allowing the completion of more work during a single 
deployment and fewer trips back to base; and improved navigation 
systems, enabling safer navigation with fewer people. 

Improved technology: Different lighting for navigation aids. In its 
aids to navigation program and in other aspects of its operations, the 
Coast Guard now uses lanterns with light emitting diodes (LEDs). Using 
LEDs results in fewer and quicker service visits, freeing time for 
other work.

Improved technology: Improved data-monitoring system. Coast Guard 
officials stated that the National Marine Fisheries Service's Vessel 
Monitoring System (VMS) helped to improve their operational efficiency 
in protecting United States fisheries. The Coast Guard leveraged this 
technology-- which monitors fishing vessel information such as the 
vessel's name, catch data, and location--and used it in conjunction 
with industry intelligence and efforts to work more closely with 
federal and state enforcement partners. Although not yet fully 
operational, according to the Coast Guard, the system was responsible 
for 7 of the 97 significant violations detected in fiscal year 2003.

Improved tactics; Use of armed helicopters. The Coast Guard reported 
that the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) provides 
personnel, training, and resources necessary to employ armed 
helicopters in support of counter drug operations. Prior to November 
2002, the Coast Guard used two armed helicopters simultaneously with 
two cutters when responding to drug interdiction operations. The Coast 
Guard has since changed its tactics to use one HITRON with one cutter 
per operation and has seen no degradation in the effectiveness of this 
drug interdiction tactic.

Improved tactics; Use of helicopters for at-sea boardings. One Coast 
Guard district identified a procedure whereby it uses helicopters 
rather than ships to conduct at-sea boardings of vessels of interest 
bound for United States ports. Doing so allows Coast Guard boarding 
personnel to reach their destination more quickly--for example, in 30 
minutes rather than 2 or 3 hours. The time that the helicopters are in 
use is incorporated into the mandatory training schedule, resulting in 
no additional usage of air resources and a decrease in ship hours for 
this purpose.

Stronger partnerships; Interagency flight schedules. In Miami, the 
Coast Guard and another Department of Homeland Security agency, the 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement office have developed a combined 
flight schedule to integrate patrol schedules and assets, which has led 
to less overlap in response efforts, saving time and resources for both 
agencies.

Stronger partnerships; Coast Guard/police department partnership. The 
Coast Guard and the New York Police Department (NYPD) have a formalized 
partnership, and officials of the two organizations communicate several
times daily on a variety of topics. They also often participate in 
joint training and first responder exercises. This partnership with 
NYPD adds significant communication and intelligence networks as well 
as a large number of additional assets to the Coast Guard's 
capabilities in New York.

Improved intelligence; Intelligence-sharing arrangements. In 2001, the 
Coast Guard joined the United States Intelligence Community, a 
federation of executive branch agencies and organizations that work 
separately and together in intelligence-gathering activities. According 
to Coast Guard officials, this step greatly enhances the agency's 
access to information.

Improved intelligence; New intelligence centers. Created in 2003, one 
Maritime Intelligence Fusion Center is located on each coast. These 
centers increase collection and analytical capabilities, enhancing the
Coast Guard's ability to fuse intelligence from various sources and 
improving the timeliness and quality of theater-level intelligence 
support to Coast Guard operational forces. 

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

The second type of explanation provided by Coast Guard officials 
involved externalities--events or developments that were largely beyond 
the Coast Guard's control but had an influence on the amount of work 
the Coast Guard had to confront. In fiscal year 2003, these factors 
included such things as "surge" demands, related to the Iraq War; a 
large increase in the number of undocumented migrants attempting to 
enter the United States by maritime routes, and poor weather conditions 
that increased icebreaking needs. According to Coast Guard officials, 
these externalities had a negative effect on performance results--that 
is, they made it more difficult for the Coast Guard to meet its goals, 
even when more resources were added. In the case of ice operations, 
because the Great Lakes region had one of the most "severe" winters it 
has experienced in the past 50 years and unpredicted amounts of ice 
formed ahead of forecasted dates, icebreaking needs in this region were 
higher than normal in fiscal year 2003. Despite this, the Coast Guard 
was still able to meet its performance goal in fiscal year 2003. 
However, according to Coast Guard officials, externalities were a 
factor in not meeting its goal for undocumented migrant interdiction 
because of the very large increase in illegal immigrants seeking to 
enter the United States by sea during fiscal year 2003.

Coast Guard Lacks Clear Understanding of Extent to Which These Factors 
Affect Results:

While the factors cited by the Coast Guard likely have an effect on 
mission performance, the extent of that effect is largely unknown. Our 
site visits suggested that the efficiency factors cited by Coast Guard 
officials likely had positive effects on the agency's performance by 
improving its effectiveness and productivity. For example, Coast Guard 
officials acknowledge that local authorities such as police and fire 
departments have assumed some of the Coast Guard's search and rescue 
workload. Likewise, our site visits suggested that the various 
externalities cited by Coast Guard officials could have negatively 
affected the performance of some missions as well. For example, as 
noted, the Coast Guard did not meet its undocumented migrant 
interdiction program's fiscal year 2003 performance target of 
interdicting or deterring 87 percent of the illegal migrants entering 
the United States by sea. Coast Guard officials identified the 
significant increase in migrants attempting to enter the United States 
in fiscal year 2003 (an externality that the Coast Guard has no control 
over) as one factor that contributed to the program missing its goal. 
However, the Coast Guard does not have a mechanism in place to 
systematically determine the extent to which either of these factors 
affects performance. For instance, it does not have data on the search 
and rescue cases handled by local responders and, therefore, is unable 
to determine the extent to which this assistance has reduced the 
workloads of small boat stations.

Accounting for the effects of such factors can be a difficult task. In 
past work, we have examined the efforts of a number of agencies to 
understand and assess the many factors that influence their performance 
results as a basis for better allocating and managing their 
resources.[Footnote 26] Like the Coast Guard, other federal agencies 
face the challenge of having limited control over the achievement of 
their intended objectives. In past work, we have found that when 
various federal agencies attempted to assess performance, their 
greatest challenge in the analysis and reporting stage of the 
performance review process was separating a program's impact on its 
objectives from the impact of external factors, primarily because the 
program's objectives were the result of complex systems or phenomena 
outside the program's control. Thus, it is not surprising that the 
Coast Guard would have difficulty in attempting to account more 
precisely for the effects of these various factors, both internal and 
external.

Our reviews of various efforts to address these analytic challenges 
showed that agencies employed a wide range of strategies to respond to 
them. For example, some broke out data on subgroups or made statistical 
adjustments to attempt to reduce the influence of external factors on 
their measures. While there is no simple or standard approach, best 
practices suggest that managers should stay alert to the many factors-
-both inside and outside their organizations--that can influence their 
ability to achieve their goals. The successful organizations we studied 
tracked and monitored their internal and external environments 
continuously and systematically. By building environmental assessment 
into the strategic planning process, organizations can stay focused on 
their long-term goals even as they make changes in the way they intend 
to achieve them. An ability to understand the effects of these various 
factors is also important in helping Coast Guard managers and the 
Congress make informed decisions about resource needs.

The Coast Guard's ability to evaluate its resource needs is also 
affected by the lack of data about resource usage in two of its 
programs--marine safety and marine environmental protection. While the 
Coast Guard collects some resource hour data for these programs, the 
vast majority of time dedicated to these two programs is not captured 
because these are people-intensive rather than asset-intensive 
programs, and the Coast Guard lacks a data collection mechanism for 
capturing these hours. More specifically, these programs may involve 
Coast Guard personnel conducting a facility inspection or responding to 
an oil spill in a marina--activities that often do not involve using 
Coast Guard ships, boats or aircraft. This "information deficit" became 
particularly significant after September 11 when the Coast Guard 
undertook significant additional port security responsibilities under 
the ports, waterways, and coastal security program. Coast Guard 
officials have acknowledged that resource hour shifts occurred from the 
marine safety and marine environmental programs to the ports, 
waterways, and coastal security program. However, they are generally 
unable to estimate the total effort dedicated to these programs or 
determine the level of resources the agency is likely to need to 
maintain program performance levels. In addition, to help meet its new 
responsibilities in the ports, waterways, and coastal security program, 
the Coast Guard issued guidance to its field units authorizing the 
suspension of certain marine safety and marine environmental protection 
program requirements. For example, Coast Guard units were given the 
flexibility to not perform lower-priority vessel boardings and to 
reduce the frequency of certain vessel inspections. They were also 
directed to leverage state and local agencies to respond to small 
spills to the maximum extent possible. While the guidance indicates 
that the marine safety office personnel should use risk-based decision 
making in implementing these types of measures, and negative impacts 
from these actions have not yet become evident, the potential effects 
of such reductions on future program performance could become a 
concern.

Coast Guard Has Started Efforts to Better Understand Effects of 
Internal and External Factors, but Impact Is Uncertain:

Coast Guard officials agreed there is value in taking a more systematic 
approach to assessing performance, including better understanding of 
the effects of internal and external factors that affect their 
performance. As a result, the agency has begun a number of steps 
directed at improving various aspects of performance assessment. Many 
of these steps are still in their early stages, and while they 
represent a good beginning, it is not yet clear when they will be 
completed and whether they will tie together to address the weaknesses 
we have identified.

One step the Coast Guard has begun involves addressing the information 
gaps that currently exist regarding resource usage in the marine safety 
office programs, but the time frame for completing these projects is 
unknown. Specific actions under way that are expected to improve 
information about the level of Coast Guard personnel hours dedicated to 
various programs include measuring the personnel overtime hours for 
certain programs, and a survey of Coast Guard units to assess how 
personnel hours were reallocated within the programs after September 
11. In addition to making these efforts, the Coast Guard also recently 
estimated the marine safety office personnel hours it believes will be 
necessary to implement its new port security responsibilities--a 
positive step toward determining what its resource needs are likely to 
be in order to successfully implement these requirements.[Footnote 27] 
The Coast Guard has also begun a broader effort to develop a system for 
tracking personnel hours at marine safety offices and related units. 
Development of this system is currently in a pilot stage, and Coast 
Guard officials did not know when it might be implemented Coast Guard-
wide. As a result, the Coast Guard currently remains unable to account 
for the vast majority of the hours dedicated to two programs--marine 
safety and marine environmental protection, and this is a concern 
considering that together these programs account for 11 percent of the 
fiscal year 2004 enacted operating budget.

In addition to obtaining a better understanding of how resources are 
used to produce results, the Coast Guard has also made some program-
specific efforts to better manage and allocate resources. In the 
illegal drug interdiction program, the Coast Guard has taken steps to 
better quantify the effect of specific operational strategies on 
performance results. By examining successful drug seizures, the Coast 
Guard has been able to determine how it is getting the most results. 
For example:

* Stationing Coast Guard personnel aboard Navy ships. According to 
Coast Guard officials, certain Coast Guard law enforcement units 
operating aboard navy ships (including those from the United States, 
the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium) were responsible for 
58 percent of the Coast Guard's cocaine seizures in fiscal year 2003.

* Using armed instead of unarmed helicopters. Use of armed helicopters 
was deemed an effective approach for the drug interdiction program, as 
Coast Guard officials determined that these helicopters could more 
effectively deter drug smugglers from escaping. According to the Coast 
Guard, this strategy accounted for 34 percent of cocaine seizures in 
fiscal year 2003.[Footnote 28]

These specific efforts are noteworthy, but there is no indication that 
efforts such as these are occurring across the broad range of Coast 
Guard missions. Coast Guard officials were unable to identify similar 
actions across all programs to quantify operational strategies and 
establish more systematic linkages between resources expended and 
performance achieved.

Separate from these program-specific efforts, the Coast Guard is 
beginning an agency-wide strategic planning effort to better assess 
linkages between the agency's strategic goals and mission programs and 
the agency's overall strategic intent. Specific actions involve data 
collection and development of analytical models and decision support 
systems. Table 5 shows some of the specific actions. If properly 
designed and implemented, such actions should help the Coast Guard with 
its long-term strategic planning and its ability to make connections 
between the agency's resources and performance. Again, however, whether 
these efforts will address the weaknesses we identified or result in 
reliable means to link resources expended with performance achieved is 
unknown, since most of the efforts have just begun or are in progress.

Table 5: Selected Examples of Actions Under Way to Improve Linkages 
between Resources and Performance Results:

Mission cost model: Readiness management system; Designed to capture 
mission operating costs on a program-by-program basis, this model 
allows the Coast Guard to calculate the operating expenses (including 
the direct costs, support costs, and overhead costs) associated with 
each program.: This Coast Guard-wide system, currently under 
development, is designed to assess the agency's ability to respond to 
mission requirements in accordance with standards. This system will 
assess six facets of readiness: people, training, equipment, supplies, 
infrastructure, and information.

Mission cost model: Analysis of long-term strategic planning needs; 
Designed to capture mission operating costs on a program-by-program 
basis, this model allows the Coast Guard to calculate the operating 
expenses (including the direct costs, support costs, and overhead 
costs) associated with each program.: The Coast Guard is using a 
"scenario planning" approach to analyze its future long-term strategic 
planning needs. Called Project Evergreen, it involves developing 
"alternative future world scenarios," developing strategies for 
addressing these future scenarios, and determining potential resource 
needs.

Mission cost model: Model for examining maritime operations; Designed 
to capture mission operating costs on a program-by-program basis, this 
model allows the Coast Guard to calculate the operating expenses 
(including the direct costs, support costs, and overhead costs) 
associated with each program.: This computer model was designed to help 
the Coast Guard address the complexities of the deepwater maritime 
environment as the agency assessed its core needs for the Integrated 
Deepwater System, a 30-year, $17 billion acquisition program. It 
simulates the core functions of the Coast Guard's maritime operations, 
analyzes alternative approaches, and projects performance results 
derived from adding and subtracting different asset combinations from 
its vessel and aircraft fleets.

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

In discussions with us, the Coast Guard has not clearly articulated a 
strategy for how these various efforts will weave together. However, 
Coast Guard officials told us that more information regarding these 
efforts will be included in the agency's strategic blueprint.

Conclusions:

The Coast Guard, like other federal agencies, needs to continue 
transforming itself into a more efficient, results-oriented 
organization if it is to meet the many fiscal, management, and policy 
challenges it is likely to face. At present, the Coast Guard lacks a 
systematic approach for explaining the relationship between its 
expenditure of resources and its performance results, limiting its 
ability to critically examine its resource needs and prioritize program 
efforts. Its new steps to improve the tracking of resource usage and 
assessment of external factors that may also have a bearing on its 
ability to meet performance goals are laudable, though it is still too 
early to determine the effect they will have. However, there is 
currently no assurance that such efforts will give the Coast Guard a 
systematic means to effectively understand and link resources expended 
with performance achieved. Without a clear understanding of this 
linkage or a time frame to ensure that it gets completed, the agency is 
at risk of misdirecting resources and missing further opportunities to 
increase productivity and efficiency to ensure the best use of its 
funds.

In our view, the Coast Guard needs to be clearer about two matters: how 
soon it will be able to have comprehensive program-by-program data 
about how its personnel spend their time, and how the many actions 
under way in its agency-wide strategic planning effort can collectively 
be used to establish clearer links between resources and performance. 
With regard to the first point, the Coast Guard's project for tracking 
personnel time is currently in the pilot stage and has no time frame 
for completion. With regard to the second point, the agency's strategic 
blueprint, which is a likely place for explaining how the Coast Guard 
will go about analyzing the relationship between resources and results, 
is still in development. Action on both fronts is necessary to provide 
information that allows the Coast Guard to manage more effectively and 
the Congress to balance the Coast Guard's resource needs against those 
of other agencies and programs at a time when our nation's financial 
condition and fiscal outlook are sobering.

Recommendations:

To provide the Coast Guard and the Congress with critical information 
necessary for an efficient and effective allocation of resources, we 
recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Commandant 
of the Coast Guard to:

* develop a time frame for expeditiously proceeding with plans for 
implementing a system that will accurately account for resources 
expended in each of its program areas, and:

* ensure that the Coast Guard's strategic planning process and its 
associated documents include a strategy for (1) identifying intervening 
factors that may affect program performance and (2) systematically 
assessing the relationship between these factors, resources used, and 
results achieved.

Agency Comments:

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Homeland 
Security and the Coast Guard for their review and comment. The Coast 
Guard generally agreed with the facts and recommendations presented in 
the report. Coast Guard officials provided a number of technical 
clarifications, which we incorporated to ensure the accuracy of our 
report. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Coast Guard 
took a formal position on GAO's recommendations. In its response, the 
Coast Guard raised two points that merit specific responses. The Coast 
Guard believes that early in the report, GAO does not fully consider 
the changing environment in which the Coast Guard operates, and how 
this affects the resources used and results achieved. We believe that 
we addressed this issue fully later on in the report where we outline a 
number of intervening factors and externalities that could have 
affected the agency's performance results. In addition, although the 
Coast Guard generally agreed with our recommendations, the agency 
believes that its multimission nature poses a higher degree of 
difficulty for the agency to implement these recommendations. We 
recognize this added challenge, but we do not believe that it mitigates 
the Coast Guard's responsibility to take these steps.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of the report 
to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the 
Commandant of the Coast Guard. In addition, the report will be 
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me on (415) 904-2200. Other contacts and acknowledgments are 
listed in appendix V.

Signed by: 

Margaret T. Wrightson: 
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues:

[End of section]

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:

To determine the trends in resource hours for each Coast Guard program 
following the September 11 terrorist attacks, we reviewed our previous 
report and resource hour data from the Coast Guard's Abstract of 
Operations (AOPS), and the Coast Guard's Aviation Logistics and 
Maintenance Information System (ALMIS). The resource hour data, 
reported by crews of cutters, boats, and aircraft, represents the hours 
that these assets spent in each of the Coast Guard's program areas. We 
analyzed resource hour data from fiscal years 2001, 2002, and 2003. We 
then compared the fiscal year 2003 data with a pre-September 11 
resource hour baseline level developed by the Coast Guard. This 
baseline is calculated by determining the average of the eight quarters 
of resource hour data from fiscal year 1999 quarter 4 through fiscal 
year 2001 quarter 3 and then multiplying this quarterly average by four 
to obtain a full year's average. We recognize that there is an overlap 
between the pre-September 11 baseline data and some of the fiscal year 
2001 data. However, because the comparisons we made were between the 
baseline and fiscal year 2003 data we were not concerned that this 
overlap would affect our results or our ability to meet our objectives. 
To determine the reliability of the data, we (1) reviewed existing 
documentation about the data and the systems that produced them, and 
(2) interviewed knowledgeable agency officials. We determined that the 
data was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. 
However, we did not analyze resource hour data for the marine 
environmental protection, marine safety, or the other law enforcement 
programs. We did not analyze the resource hour data for marine safety 
and marine environmental protection programs because these programs are 
largely carried out without using Coast Guard assets, and thus the vast 
majority of effort related to these programs is not captured in AOPS or 
ALMIS. And furthermore, there are no data available that would allow us 
to make similar comparisons in the levels of effort for these programs. 
In addition, the Coast Guard reported that a surge in resource hours 
for the other law enforcement program (hours that were not related to 
foreign fish enforcement), was the result of a misinterpretation of 
port security activities, and as a result, we did not analyze changes 
in hours specifically related to the other law enforcement program.

We reviewed the resource hour data for the remaining programs--search 
and rescue; aids to navigation; defense readiness; foreign fish 
enforcement; ice operations; illegal drug interdiction; living marine 
resources; undocumented migrant interdiction; and ports, waterways, and 
coastal security--to identify how resources were utilized across 
programs both before and after September 11. In addition, we also spoke 
with officials at Coast Guard headquarters and at the Atlantic Area 
Command in Portsmouth, Virginia, and in various Coast Guard district 
offices and operational units in Boston, Portsmouth, Miami, New 
Orleans, and Seattle, as well as personnel at operational units under 
these district commands.

To identify changes in performance results compared with increases or 
decreases in resource hours, we analyzed the Coast Guard's Periodic 
Table of Program Performance as well as its 2003 Performance Report. We 
assessed the reliability of the performance data by reviewing existing 
documentation about the data and the systems that produced them, and we 
interviewed knowledgeable officials. We determined that the data were 
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.

We reviewed the performance data to determine how performance changed 
between fiscal years 2001 and 2003. We also interviewed Coast Guard 
officials within the Coast Guard's Office of Plans, Policy, and 
Evaluation and program officials in all 11 of the Coast Guard's 
programs. We also reviewed incomplete drafts of the Coast Guard's 
Strategic Blueprint.

To identify the Coast Guard's efforts to utilize intelligence, 
technology, tactics, and partnerships to enhance mission effectiveness, 
we reviewed our previous reports, and Congressional Research Service 
reports. In addition, we discussed efforts in utilizing intelligence 
and technology, developing partnerships, and employing new tactics at 
Coast Guard headquarters and district offices that we visited, as well 
as at local Coast Guard units under these districts' commands. We also 
reviewed Coast Guard mission planning guidance and the Coast Guard's 
Maritime Strategy for Homeland Security.

We conducted our work between June 2003 and March 2004 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Program-by-Program Trends in Coast Guard Resource Hours:

This appendix shows, for the nine Coast Guard programs with measurable 
resource hours, the trend in these hours from the Coast Guard's pre-
September 11 baseline through fiscal years 2001, 2002, and 2003. In 
all, four of the nine programs saw resource hours increase, four saw 
declines, and one remained essentially the same.

Programs with Increasing Resource Hours:

Homeland security programs such as ports, waterways, and coastal 
security; undocumented migrant interdiction; and defense 
readiness[Footnote 29] were the primary beneficiaries of the growing 
Coast Guard resource hours. One non-homeland security program, ice 
operations, also experienced an increase in resource hours. However, 
compared with the other programs, this program accounted for relatively 
few hours.

Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security:

Prior to the events of September 11, the ports, waterways, and coastal 
security program was relatively small, with few resource hours. 
However, the program grew significantly after fiscal year 2001. (See 
fig. 3.) The program surged from a pre-September 11 baseline of 19,291 
resource hours to 254,640 resource hours in fiscal year 2003. A Coast 
Guard official in Group Seattle attributed this substantial increase in 
resource hours to the many additional homeland security activities it 
was performing, including conducting port security patrols.

Figure 3: Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Undocumented Migrant Interdiction:

The undocumented migrant interdiction program's resource hours surged 
significantly in fiscal year 2003. (See fig. 4.) From its pre-September 
11 baseline of 29,642 hours, undocumented migrant interdiction resource 
hours declined to 21,836 hours in fiscal year 2001 and then grew to 
53,559 hours in fiscal year 2003. A District 7 Coast Guard official 
indicated that the additional hours resulted, in part, from increased 
priority for this program because of a growing recognition that illegal 
migrants successfully entering the United States were the equivalent of 
a security breach. In addition, another District 7 Coast Guard official 
also attributed the increase to the growing political instability in 
the Caribbean, which increased the flow of migrants from that region.

Figure 4: Undocumented Migrant Interdiction Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Defense Readiness:

Defense readiness resource hours grew incrementally until fiscal year 
2003 and then surged upward. The pre-September 11 baseline level of 
about 6,000 hours accounted for 1 percent of total Coast Guard hours; 
by fiscal year 2003, the number of hours had grown to nearly 40,000 
hours, or about 5 percent of total hours. (See fig. 5.) The increased 
hours were generally a result of 11 cutters and 24 boats being deployed 
to Iraq, where they provided security for United States assets.

Figure 5: Defense Readiness Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Ice Operations:

Ice operations is the one non-homeland security program with resource 
hours that increased from its pre-September 11 baseline levels. Ice 
operations resource hours increased from a pre-September 11 baseline of 
11,935 hours to 17,217 hours by fiscal year 2003. (See fig. 6.) Coast 
Guard officials told us that the icebreaker Healy became fully 
operational in 2001 and that the addition of this asset contributed to 
the increased icebreaking hours as well. Furthermore, according to the 
Coast Guard, the weather conditions in fiscal year 2003 contributed to 
the increased hours as icebreaking assets needed additional time to 
address the more severe ice conditions. However, the increase in hours 
was smaller, on both a percentage and an actual basis than the 
increases for homeland security programs, and this program has 
considerably fewer resource hours than most of the other Coast Guard 
programs. In fiscal year 2003, the program accounted for about 2 
percent of total Coast Guard resource hours.

Figure 6: Ice Operations Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Programs with Declining Resource Hours:

Resource hours for foreign fish enforcement, living marine resources, 
illegal drug interdiction, and search and rescue have declined from 
their pre-September 11 levels. Coast Guard officials acknowledged that 
the continued emphasis on ports, waterways, and coastal security has 
made it difficult for some programs to rebound to their pre-September 
11 resource hour levels.

Foreign Fish Enforcement:

Resource hours for the foreign fish enforcement program remained below 
their pre-September 11 baseline. From the baseline of about 8,000 
hours, foreign fish enforcement hours declined to about 5,100 hours in 
fiscal year 2001. By fiscal year 2003, the number of hours had 
increased to approximately 6,700 hours, but this was still 16 percent 
below the pre-September 11 baseline level. (See fig. 7.) Coast Guard 
officials explained that the program is largely demand-driven, in that 
the incentive for foreign fishermen to violate regulations is based on 
such factors as weather, currents, market rates for fish, and where the 
fish are located.

Figure 7: Foreign Fish Enforcement Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Living Marine Resources:

Living marine resources showed a similar decline in resource hours 
between its pre-September 11 level and fiscal year 2003. Resource hours 
declined from the pre-September 11 baseline of 91,255 to 67,576 in 
fiscal year 2003--a 26 percent decline. (See fig. 8.) Coast Guard 
officials said the early part of fiscal year 2003 was an unusually low 
year for domestic fish; because of the harsh winter weather fishermen 
did not venture out to fish. Coast Guard officials also said resource 
hours in the program tended to decline when the security threat level 
was raised, because boats, ships, and aircraft were reassigned to high 
security risk areas.

Figure 8: Living Marine Resources Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Illegal Drug Interdiction:

The pre-September 11 baseline for illegal drug interdiction resource 
hours totaled 122,694 but declined in fiscal year 2002 to 78,002 hours 
and then to 69,268 hours in fiscal year 2003. (See fig. 9.) Overall, 
illegal drug interdiction resource hours declined 44 percent between 
the baseline and fiscal year 2003. According to Coast Guard officials, 
the illegal drug interdiction program continued to successfully seize 
illegal drugs, despite the decrease in resource hours, in part because 
improved intelligence allowed them to better target their drug 
interdiction operations. Another factor that the Coast Guard believes 
has contributed to their drug interdiction efforts is a 1997 bilateral 
agreement with the government of Colombia that has improved cooperation 
and resulted in additional seizures and information.

Figure 9: Illegal Drug Interdiction Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Search and Rescue:

The search and rescue program's resource hours also remain below pre-
September 11 levels. From its pre-September 11 baseline of 82,689 
hours, search and rescue declined to 64,383 resource hours in fiscal 
year 2003. (See fig. 10.) Coast Guard headquarters officials stated 
that the drop in search and rescue hours after September 11 probably 
resulted from increased security concerns that discouraged people from 
boating and fewer boaters could have resulted in fewer distress calls-
-a reduced caseload for the Coast Guard. In addition, a Group Seattle 
official believed that the group's prevention efforts and more frequent 
security patrols may have contributed to a reduction in hours as well.

Figure 10: Search and Rescue Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Programs with Stable Resource Hours:

Only one Coast Guard program, aids to navigation, which is a non-
homeland security program, had stable resource hours between the pre-
September 11 baseline and fiscal year 2003.

Aids to Navigation:

From their pre-September 11 baseline of 112,148 hours, aids to 
navigation resource hours rose to 127,827 hours in fiscal year 2001, 
(an increase of 14 percent), and then declined to 110,456 hours in 
fiscal year 2003, which was 2 percent below the pre-September 11 level. 
(See fig. 11.) A Coast Guard official said the slight decline resulted 
from the addition of more technologically advanced assets, which allow 
the Coast Guard to achieve the same results in less time.

Figure 11: Aids to Navigation Resource Hours:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

[End of section]

Appendix III: Program-by-Program Trends in Coast Guard Performance 
Measures:

To measure its accomplishments, the Coast Guard uses a set of 
performance measures developed in accordance with the Government 
Performance and Results Act (GPRA). GPRA is a key component of a 
statutory framework that the Congress put in place during the 1990s to 
promote a new focus on results.[Footnote 30] Finding that waste and 
inefficiency in federal programs were undermining confidence in 
government, the Congress sought to hold federal agencies accountable 
for the results of federal spending through regular and systematic 
performance planning, measurement, and reporting. With the 
implementation of GPRA, federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, 
are required to set goals, measure performance, and report on their 
accomplishments. The act requires that federal agencies establish long-
term strategic goals, as well as annual goals. Agencies must then 
measure their performance against the goals they set and report 
publicly on how well they are doing.

Coast Guard officials said their performance measures help focus 
efforts and link performance to a strategic outcome, manage programs at 
the headquarters level, and identify performance gaps.

The Coast Guard currently has performance measures for 10 of its 11 
programs.[Footnote 31] While some programs have historically contained 
multiple measures, they have been adjusted to one measure per program 
since the Coast Guard's transition to the Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS), as shown in table 6 below. The performance measures 
consist of performance results, which track the annual progress of each 
program, and performance targets, which are the goals their results aim 
to meet each year.

Table 6: Coast Guard Performance Measures by Program:

Mission and program; 
Homeland security mission: Defense readiness; 
Performance measure: Percentage of time units meet combat readiness 
status at C-2 level[A].

Mission and program; 
Homeland security mission: Foreign fish enforcement; 
Performance measure: Number of detected Exclusive Economic Zone 
incursions by foreign fishing vessels.

Mission and program; 
Homeland security mission: Illegal drug interdiction; 
Performance measure: Percentage of cocaine seizures entering the United 
States through maritime means.

Mission and program; 
Homeland security mission: Ports, waterways, and coastal security; 
Performance measure: Not yet determined.

Mission and program; 
Homeland security mission: Undocumented migrant interdiction; 
Performance measure: Percentage of interdicted illegal migrants 
entering the United States through maritime means.

Mission and program; 
Non-homeland security mission: Aids to navigation; 
Performance measure: Number of collisions, allisions, and 
groundings.

Mission and program; 
Non-homeland security mission: Ice operations; 
Performance measure: Number of waterway closure days.

Mission and program; 
Non-homeland security mission: Living marine resources; 
Performance measure: Percentage of fishermen found in compliance with 
regulations.

Marine environmental protection; 
Performance measure: Number of chemical and oil spills greater than 100 
gallons per 100 million short tons shipped.

Mission and program; 
Non-homeland security mission: Marine safety; 
Performance measure: Number of passenger vessel, maritime worker, and 
recreational boating fatalities and injuries.

Mission and program; 
Non-homeland security mission: Search and rescue; 
Performance measure: Percentage of distressed mariners' lives saved. 

Source: Coast Guard performance data.

[A] According to Coast Guard information, the C-2 level is defined as 
the level at which each unit possesses the resources and is trained to 
undertake most of the wartime missions for which it is organized or 
designed.

[End of table]

For the purposes of this report, we studied performance for 8 of the 10 
programs with performance measures. We did not analyze the marine 
safety and marine environmental protection programs' performance 
results because we were unable to obtain any reasonable measurement of 
the levels of effort being directed into these programs, and therefore 
had no basis for comparing their resource levels with their performance 
results.

Overall, for the eight programs we studied, performance results 
remained stable or improved between fiscal years 2001 and 
2003.[Footnote 32] Of these programs, all but defense readiness and 
undocumented migrant interdiction met their performance targets for 
fiscal year 2003.

Programs with Generally Stable Performance Results:

Undocumented Migrant Interdiction:

The undocumented migrant interdiction performance measure, which 
measures the percentage of migrants interdicted or deterred on maritime 
routes, had a result that remained relatively stable, between 82.5 
percent to 88.3 percent. (See fig. 12.) Although the Coast Guard did 
not reach the program's target level of 87 percent in fiscal year 2003, 
the result has remained in this range, plus or minus about six 
percentage points, since fiscal year 2001.[Footnote 33] Coast Guard 
officials said they could not explain the decline but consider it to be 
minimal. According to the Coast Guard, in fiscal year 2003 there were 
3,793 successful arrivals and an estimated threat--the estimated flow 
of migrants into the United States--of 25,750 migrants, yielding the 
85.3 percent result. Although the interdiction rate decreased slightly, 
the activity level was up, reflecting the increase in resource hours 
dedicated to this mission. (The 2003 Mission Planning Guidance 
stipulated that 28,000 hours of cutter and aircraft time be used for 
undocumented migrant interdiction, whereas the 2004 guidance stipulated 
47,000 hours of cutter and aircraft time be used.):

In fiscal year 2003, the Coast Guard reported 5,331 migrant 
interdictions compared with 2,409 in fiscal year 2002, an increase of 
over 120 percent.[Footnote 34] By comparison, the estimated threat rose 
by about 18 percent.

Figure 12: Undocumented Migrant Interdiction Performance Results and 
Target by Fiscal Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Illegal Drug Interdiction:

The illegal drug interdiction performance measure--the rate at which 
the Coast Guard seizes cocaine--remained relatively steady between 
fiscal years 2001 and 2002, ranging from 10.6 percent to 11.7 
percent.[Footnote 35] (See fig. 13.) The seizure rate is defined as the 
metric tons of cocaine seized by the Coast Guard each fiscal year, 
divided by the estimated maritime flow of cocaine for the same 
year.[Footnote 36] The goal is based on a 1997 Department of 
Transportation requirement setting the target baseline at 8.7 percent 
and raising it 10 percent every 5 years. The Coast Guard did not meet 
its performance target for the drug program in fiscal years 2001 and 
2002. Starting in fiscal year 2004, the Coast Guard is changing its 
illegal drug interdiction performance measure to a removal rather than 
a seizure rate. This new measure includes cocaine that is jettisoned or 
lost as well as cocaine that is seized. Coast Guard officials believe 
this new measure more accurately reflects the total impact of the 
program on disrupting the flow of illegal drugs into the United 
States.[Footnote 37]

Figure 13: Illegal Drug Interdiction Performance Results and Targets by 
Fiscal Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Ice Operations:

Ice operations showed both stable performance results that met 
performance targets in fiscal years 2001 and 2003. (See fig. 14.) To 
meet the target, the ice operations program must keep winter waterway 
closures under 8 days per year for severe winters and under 2 days per 
year for average winters. The Coast Guard met this target in fiscal 
year 2003, with only 7 days of closures during the severe winter 
season. Ice operations program managers attribute their success to good 
planning. Each year officials from the Canadian Coast Guard, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the United States 
Coast Guard hold a planning conference to develop a winter severity 
assessment. If the assessment determines the weather will be severe, 
they develop a strategy to dedicate more assets to ice operations in 
order to meet the target.

Figure 14: Ice Operations Performance Results and Targets by Fiscal 
Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Living Marine Resources:

The performance measure for living marine resources--defined as the 
percentage of fishermen complying with federal regulations--remained 
stable between 97.1 and 98.6 percent over the past 3 years. The program 
also met its target of 97 percent, which was first established in 
fiscal year 2003. (See fig. 15.) Coast Guard officials attribute these 
results to concerted efforts to improve operational efficiency 
particularly through a vessel monitoring system and better intelligence 
sharing while working more closely with federal and state enforcement 
partners. Coast Guard officials said 16 of the 97 significant 
violations detected in fiscal year 2003, such as damage to the fish 
stock, were accomplished through these new efforts.

Figure 15: Living Marine Resources Performance Results and Target by 
Fiscal Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Search and Rescue:

Between fiscal years 2001 and 2003, the search and rescue program's 
performance results were steady. The performance measure for this 
program is the percentage of mariners' lives saved from imminent 
danger. The range over the 3 years was 84.2 percent to 87.7 percent, 
and the result in fiscal year 2003 was above the target of 85 percent. 
(See fig. 16.) Coast Guard officials attributed the improvement to 
continued focus on the search and rescue program. The Coast Guard has 
also added 950 new positions to the program since 2001. The Coast Guard 
indicated that this personnel increase is reportedly helping manage 
surge requirements as they occur.

Figure 16: Search and Rescue Performance Results and Target by Fiscal 
Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Programs with Improved Performance Results:

Foreign Fish Enforcement:

The performance results for foreign fish enforcement, which indicate 
the number of foreign vessel incursions into the United States 
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ),[Footnote 38] dropped from 250 incursions 
in fiscal year 2002 to 153 incursions in fiscal year 2003. (See fig. 
17.) Because of this improvement, foreign fish enforcement met its 
target for fiscal year 2003. (In this case, since the goal is to 
minimize incursions, a decline is a positive result.) The decrease was 
greatest along the United States/Russian maritime boundary line (6 
incursions versus 22 incursions in fiscal year 2002) and in the Central 
and Western Pacific region (15 incursions versus 89 in fiscal year 
2002). The Coast Guard reported that the drop along the United States/
Russian boundary line was due to a near-constant enforcement presence, 
increased presence of Russian patrol vessels in the vicinity, and a 
stronger enforcement posture on the Coast Guard's part, including the 
option of employing warning shots and disabling fire against violators. 
The decrease in observed incursions in the Central and Western Pacific 
was more difficult for the Coast Guard to explain. One potential 
explanation the Coast Guard gave was reduced cutter and aircraft 
coverage, brought on by the need to shift resources to thwart known 
ongoing illegal high seas drift net fishing in the North Pacific. 
According to the Coast Guard, this lack of enforcement could have 
reduced detections, but since most detected incursions in recent years 
have come from third party reports and intelligence sources rather than 
directly from Coast Guard enforcement assets, they do not believe lack 
of enforcement to be the cause of this shift.

Figure 17: Foreign Fish Enforcement Performance Results and Target by 
Fiscal Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Aids to Navigation:

The aids to navigation program performance measure--which assesses the 
total number of collisions, allisions[Footnote 39], and groundings--
also demonstrated improved results between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. 
The number of incidents declined from 1,936 in fiscal year 2002 to 
1,523 in fiscal year 2003, a decrease of 21 percent in the last year. 
(See fig. 18.) Furthermore, the program met its target level in each of 
the three years. Coast Guard officials attribute their performance 
success to two reasons--an improved navigational infrastructure, and 
use of activities such as vessel inspection and mariner licensing and 
examination to reduce causal factors in collisions, allisions, and 
groundings.

Figure 18: Aids to Navigation Performance Results and Targets by Fiscal 
Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Defense Readiness:

Defense readiness, as measured by the percentage of time units meet 
combat readiness status at a C-2 level,[Footnote 40] improved during 
fiscal years 2001 to 2003. The percentage of time that defense 
readiness was at a C-2 level rose from 67 percent fiscal year 2001 to 
78 percent in fiscal year 2003. However, defense readiness did not meet 
its target of 100 percent readiness. (See fig. 19.) The Coast Guard 
reported that this was due to equipment problems associated with 
operating aging ships and unit training deficiencies such as cutters 
not having sufficient training time to perform gunnery exercises.

Figure 19: Defense Readiness Performance Results and Target by Fiscal 
Year:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

[End of section]

Appendix IV: Examples of Coast Guard Approaches to Enhance Operational 
Efficiency:

One of the issues that we discussed with agency officials at Coast 
Guard headquarters and all five districts we visited was their efforts 
to utilize intelligence, technology, tactics, and partnerships to 
leverage existing resources. Coast Guard officials provided examples of 
new efforts that ranged in scope from agency-wide to location-specific. 
Greater access to intelligence information, new technologies and 
tactics, and a number of new or improved partnerships have likely 
increased efficiency to a degree, but in most cases the Coast Guard is 
unable to measure the impacts.

The following tables show selected examples of these efforts. The 
examples provided in the tables are not a comprehensive list of all 
Coast Guard efforts in these four areas, but they serve to illustrate 
the variety of efforts under way.

Intelligence:

Intelligence efforts are primarily aimed at increasing the Coast 
Guard's collection and analytical capabilities to enhance the usage of 
intelligence information. Greater coordination with external entities 
is another emphasis, adding to the amount of intelligence that the 
Coast Guard receives and is able to act upon. Table 7 shows examples of 
efforts at various Coast Guard levels.

Table 7: Selected Examples of Intelligence Efforts:

Coast Guard location: Coast Guard-wide; Intelligence effort: 
Intelligence Coordination Center (ICC). This strategic intelligence 
center serves as the focal point for interaction with the intelligence 
components of the Department of Defense, other law enforcement 
agencies, and the intelligence community. The ICC supports all Coast 
Guard missions and is the center for Coast Guard intelligence 
collection and management.

Coast Guard location: Atlantic area; Intelligence effort: Joint Harbor 
Operations Center (JHOC). The Hampton Roads JHOC is a collaborative 
effort of the Navy and Coast Guard that provides an effective command, 
control, communications, and computer system and information, 
surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capability. The JHOC is to be 
assigned 9 Navy and 22 Coast Guard positions and is currently staffed 
with Coast Guard and Navy reservists.

Coast Guard location: Districts; Intelligence effort: Field 
intelligence support teams. These consist of Coast Guard intelligence 
analysts and Coast Guard special agents. They provide tactical 
intelligence support to Coast Guard captains of the port by collecting 
information and reporting suspicious or criminal activity in the port 
areas, sharing information with other agencies at the local level, and 
rapidly disseminating intelligence to the captain of the port and other 
local commanders.

Coast Guard location: Sector New Orleans; Intelligence effort: Combined 
Operations and Intelligence Node (COIN). This effort includes a shared 
operations center staffed by personnel from the four Coast Guard 
commands located in or around New Orleans. The chief goal of COIN is to 
improve mission performance and tactical awareness through the 
efficient use of limited resources.

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

Technology:

Most technology acquisitions are done Coast Guard-wide, and the 
examples in table 8 reflect this focus. However, some districts and 
units have purchased or developed unique technologies to operate in 
their environment. The table shows several examples, including one 
unique to the fifth district (Portsmouth, VA), where a database has 
been designed to provide the real-time status of assets and personnel.

Table 8: Selected Examples of Technology Efforts:

Coast Guard location: Coast Guard-wide; New technology: Night vision 
goggles. Used by cutter, aircraft, and maritime safety and security 
team personnel during periods of darkness, these goggles allow for 
safer operations and enhanced ability to detect intrusions.

Coast Guard location: Coast Guard-wide; New technology: Pilot program 
in various Coast Guard locations: Self-locating datum marker buoys. For 
the search and rescue program, these new buoys provide more up-to-date 
data that can be used to better determine where to begin a search. The 
Coast Guard intends for this technology to improve both search 
effectiveness and efficiency.

Coast Guard location: Pilot program in various Coast Guard locations; 
New technology: Personal data assistant (PDA). In several locations, 
PDAs are being used by boarding officers and marine inspectors to 
conduct their work. The Coast Guard expects that using PDAs will reduce 
redundant paperwork and facilitate electronic database entries.

Coast Guard location: District 5 Portsmouth, Va; New technology: 
SMARTS. This is a database created by personnel in District 5 to 
provide information about assets and personnel. This database is 
updated throughout the day by groups within the district and can also 
be used to analyze trend data. Officials in the fifth district told us 
that this data system saves both time and resources, because the 
information it provides would typically require numerous phone calls 
throughout the day.

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

Tactics:

Modifying standard operating procedures and improving the way that 
routine activities are carried out can lead to greater efficiencies, 
enhancing mission effectiveness. Coast Guard officials cited various 
examples of how they had done so--often with the help of the other 
types of efforts (intelligence, technology, and partnerships). Table 9 
outlines examples of new Coast Guard tactics that officials described 
to us as improving efficiency.

Table 9: Selected Examples of New Tactics:

Coast Guard location: Coast Guard-wide; New tactic: Advanced notice of 
arrival (NOA). The former 24-hour NOA prior to entering a United States 
port has been extended to 96 hours. The information provided with the 
NOA includes details on the crew, passengers, cargo, and the vessel 
itself. This increase in notice has enabled the Coast Guard to screen 
more vessels in advance of arrival and allows additional time to 
prepare for boardings.

Coast Guard location: Pacific and Atlantic area commands; New tactic: 
Maritime safety and security teams (MSSTs). These 100-person units, 
established after the September 11 attacks, provide a fast-deployment 
capability for homeland security, search and rescue, and law 
enforcement programs. MSSTs will deploy in support of national security 
special events such as Super Bowls and Olympics, as well as for severe 
weather recovery operations, protection of military load-outs, 
enforcement of security zones, defense of critical waterside facilities 
in strategic ports, and interdiction of illegal activities.

Coast Guard location: District 8 New Orleans, La; New tactic: Inland 
River Vessel Movement Center. Starting in March 2003, vessels with 
certain dangerous cargos must report their crew and cargo as they move 
on the Mississippi River. The integration software the Coast Guard 
utilizes for this tracking is new, but there is no new technology 
required for the industry participants. This tactic allows for easier 
and more consistent tracking of these cargos during transits through 
densely populated areas.

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

Partnerships:

In a past examination of Coast Guard activities, we commented that 
leveraging resources through partnerships provides mission efficiency 
to the Coast Guard.[Footnote 41] The Coast Guard has attempted to 
develop ways to partner more effectively with local, state, and federal 
agencies, as well as with public and private entities, and we found a 
number of examples in the locations that we visited, especially for 
homeland security. Coast Guard officials told us that these 
relationships were not necessarily new but had certainly improved since 
September 11. Table 10 highlights some of these examples. They include 
new efforts in collaborating with other DHS entities. Coast Guard 
officials told us that while in some instances these relationships 
existed prior to the formation of DHS, they have grown stronger with 
the creation of the new department.

Table 10: Selected Examples of Coast Guard Partnership Efforts:

Coast Guard location: District 7 Miami; Partnership: DHS Partners Forum 
Southeast Florida Region. This group was formed to promote closer 
cooperation in southeast Florida among agencies moving to DHS. The 
objectives include sharing information and developing and implementing 
new coordinated initiatives. There are four interagency working groups 
that include operations/communications, intelligence, information 
management and public affairs, and mass migration planning.

Coast Guard location: District 8 Sector New Orleans; Partnership: Field 
Targeting Center (FTC). Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Office of 
Field Operations brings together members of CBP, Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard to screen and 
target vessels. Coast Guard Sector New Orleans placed a watch stander 
at FTC to establish a cooperative screening of all incoming vessels. As 
a result of the partnership, the Coast Guard was also able to get 
access to two systems that greatly improved information about incoming 
vessels and their crewmembers and passengers.

Coast Guard location: District 5 Group Hampton Roads; Partnership: 
Navy. In addition to collaborating with the Navy on the Joint Harbor 
Operations Center (highlighted in table 7), the Coast Guard partners 
with the Navy on a number of different initiatives in the fifth 
district to combine resources and avoid overlap. Since 2001, the Navy 
has provided vessels to the Coast Guard for naval escorts, and now some 
of these vessels are staffed with law enforcement detachments and 
MSSTs. Group Hampton Roads also maintains an active working group with 
Navy officials, and the group meets often to discuss overlapping issues 
including enforcement of the local security zone and joint law 
enforcement boardings.

Coast Guard location: District 13 Marine Safety Office Puget Sound; 
Partnership: Washington State Ferries (WSF). WSF is the largest ferry 
system in the United States and one of the Coast Guard's greatest 
security concerns in the Northwest. WSF, the Washington State Patrol, 
and local Coast Guard officials have established a committee to 
identify goals and recommendations concerning ferry security, including 
the refinement of a rapid response information network to be used when 
specific threats are detected.

Source: Coast Guard.

[End of table]

[End of section]

Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contacts:

Margaret Wrightson (415) 904-2200 Randall B. Williamson (206) 287-4860:

Staff Acknowledgments:

In addition to those named above, William Bates, Elizabeth Curda, 
Michele Fejfar, Dawn Hoff, David Hooper, Dawn Locke, Allen Lomax, 
Heather MacLeod, Eileen Peguero, and Stan Stenersen made key 
contributions to this report.

[End of section]

Related GAO Products:

Coast Guard: Challenges during the Transition to the Department of 
Homeland Security (GAO-03-594T, April 1, 2003).

Coast Guard: Comprehensive Blueprint Needed to Balance and Monitor 
Resource Use and Measure Performance for All Missions (GAO-03-544T, 
March 12, 2003).

Homeland Security: Challenges Facing the Coast Guard as It Transitions 
to the New Department (GAO-03-467T, February 12, 2003).

Coast Guard: Strategy Needed for Setting and Monitoring Levels of 
Effort for All Missions (GAO-03-155, November 12, 2002).

Managing for Results: Agency Progress in Linking Performance Plans with 
Budgets and Financial Statements (GAO-02-236, January 4, 2002).

Performance Budgeting: Initial Experiences under the Results Act in 
Linking Plans with Budgets (GAO/AIMD/GGD-99-67, April 12, 1999).

Managing for Results: Measuring Program Results That Are under Limited 
Federal Control (GAO/GGD-99-16, December 11, 1998).

The Results Act: An Evaluator's Guide to Assessing Agency Annual 
Performance Plans (GAO/GGD-10.1.20, April 1998).

Managing for Results: The Statutory Framework for Performance-Based 
Management and Accountability (GAO/AIMD/GGD-98-52, January 28, 1998).

Managing for Results: Analytic Challenges in Measuring Performance 
(GAO/HEHS/GGD-97-138, May 1997).

Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government Performance 
and Results Act (GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996).

FOOTNOTES

[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Coast Guard: Challenges during the 
Transition to the Department of Homeland Security (GAO-03-594T, April 
2003); U.S. General Accounting Office, Coast Guard: Comprehensive 
Blueprint Needed to Balance and Monitor Resource Use and Measure 
Performance for All Missions (GAO-03-544T, March 2003); U.S. General 
Accounting Office, Coast Guard: Strategy Needed for Setting and 
Monitoring Levels of Effort for All Missions (GAO-03-155, November 
2002).

[2] Although resource hour data is captured for all of the Coast 
Guard's programs, to a much greater extent than other programs, the 
marine safety and marine environmental protection programs are carried 
out in ways other than using Coast Guard assets--ships, boats, and 
aircraft. Instead, marine safety office personnel are extensively 
involved in such things as conducting ship inspections in port, 
examining shore-side facilities, and carrying out port security 
activities. The Coast Guard's current information systems do not 
capture the majority of the time devoted to these activities, which 
appear to be increasing in importance as a result of the Coast Guard's 
new port security responsibilities. 

[3] These performance measures were developed following the 
implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act in 1993. 
Many agencies, including the Coast Guard, began developing performance 
measures to strengthen government performance and accountability by 
focusing on the results of activities and spending. The act required 
agencies to establish missions, goals, and performance measures as well 
as clearer linkages between resources and results. 

[4] We excluded the marine safety and marine environmental protection 
programs because they did not have complete resource-hour data that 
would allow us to compare resource-hour trends with performance 
results. We provided only resource hour information for the Coast 
Guard's newest program--called ports, waterways, and coastal security, 
or PWCS--because the Coast Guard has not yet established performance 
measures for it. Finally, we provided limited performance results 
information for the illegal drug interdiction program because 
performance results for this program for fiscal year 2003 were not yet 
available.

[5] The fiscal year 2003 operating budget included $628 million in 
supplemental funding for Iraqi Freedom and Liberty Shield (P.L. 108-11, 
April 16, 2003). It also included a .65 percent rescission (P.L. 108-7, 
Feb. 20, 2003).

[6] In fiscal year 2003, there were about 38,300 military and 6,200 
civilian personnel. In addition, the agency had about 7,900 reservists 
who support the national military strategy and provide additional 
operational support and surge capacity during emergencies, such as 
natural disasters. Furthermore, about 36,000 volunteer auxiliary 
personnel helped with a wide array of activities, ranging from search 
and rescue to boating safety education.

[7] The Coast Guard's homeland security and non-homeland security 
missions are delineated in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P. L. 
107-296, Nov. 25, 2002). 

[8] Prior to the fiscal year 2003 budget request, the Coast Guard 
included maritime security activities under its marine safety program 
area.

[9] In total, the Coast Guard has 32 group commands, 75 marine safety 
offices or related units, and 31 air stations located throughout the 
United States and its territories.

[10] The Coast Guard recently announced an organizational restructuring 
that would combine marine safety offices and groups into single command 
structures to be known as sectors. The Coast Guard stated that the 
purpose of this new organizational structure is to strengthen unity of 
command in port, waterway, and coastal areas of operation by specific 
geographic areas of responsibility. According to the Coast Guard, 
sweeping changes to the agency's operational environment brought about 
since September 11 reinforce the need for these combined commands that 
will provide an interdependent approach to mission accomplishment, a 
common operating picture, and a focal point for intra-departmental, 
interagency, and other maritime stakeholders.

[11] The Coast Guard maintains information, on a program-by-program 
basis, about how resources (assets such as ships, boats, or aircraft) 
are used to conduct its program missions including search and rescue; 
aids to navigation; defense readiness; other law enforcement (foreign 
fish enforcement); ice operations; marine environmental protection; 
illegal drug interdiction; living marine resources; undocumented 
migrant interdiction; ports, waterways, and coastal security; and 
marine safety. Each hour that these resources are used is called a 
resource hour. However, resource hours do not include such things as 
the time that the resource stands idle or the time that is spent in 
maintaining it. Resource hours associated with Coast Guard training for 
personnel and asset maintenance are captured in the miscellaneous 
support category of resource hours. Resource hours also do not 
represent the vast majority of marine safety and marine environmental 
protection efforts carried out by marine safety office personnel as 
these programs are largely carried out without using Coast Guard 
assets, and there are no similar data for making comparisons in the 
levels of effort. As a result, resource levels and performance results 
for the marine safety and the marine environmental protection programs 
were not analyzed for this report. In addition, the hours reported in 
the miscellaneous support category are not included in the total 
resource hours analyzed in this report.

[12] The Coast Guard calculated a resource hour baseline from which the 
change in resource hours since the September 11 attacks can be 
estimated. This baseline is an average of the eight fiscal year 
quarters preceding September 11, 2001 multiplied by four to put it in 
terms of a full fiscal year. For the purposes of this report, we refer 
to this calculation as the pre September 11 baseline or as pre-
September 11 levels. According to Coast Guard officials, there is no 
special significance to this baseline period, other than it represents 
the historical mission activity of the Coast Guard at that period in 
time. 

[13] According to a Coast Guard official, while the ports, waterways, 
and coastal security program did not exist as a separate program prior 
to September 11, 2001, resource hours related to this program's 
activities were collected under four categories: port safety, port 
security-military, port security-other, and military operations-peace. 
The hours from these categories were combined after September 11 to 
make up the pre-September 11 baseline of resource hours for what the 
Coast Guard now defines as the ports, waterways, and coastal security 
program. After September 11, 2001, the Coast Guard began identifying 
resource hours under a ports, waterways, and coastal security program 
category. 

[14] According to a Coast Guard official, the Maritime Security 
Condition System (MARSEC) alerts all Coast Guard components of any 
perceived threats or risk to various Coast Guard ports or a particular 
industry. MARSEC 1 is equivalent to the Department of Homeland 
Security's Advisory System's (HSAS) threat level green (low risk of 
terrorist attack), blue (guarded or general risk of terrorist attack), 
and yellow (elevated or significant risk of terrorist attack). MARSEC 2 
is equivalent to HSAS orange (high risk of terrorist attack) and MARSEC 
3 is equivalent to HSAS red (severe risk of terrorist attack). In 
fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003, higher security levels existed for 19 
days, 73 days, and 90 days, respectively.

[15] According to GPRA, performance results are defined as the outcome 
of direct products and services delivered by a program. Performance 
targets or goals are defined as a set of annual goals that establish 
the agency's intended performance, stating a particular level of 
performance in either an absolute value or as a targeted level of 
improvement. 

[16] We did not analyze detailed performance results for the marine 
safety and marine environmental protection programs because we were 
unable to obtain complete information on the resource hours for these 
programs; therefore, we had no basis for comparing resource levels with 
performance results. However, the performance results for the marine 
safety program for fiscal years 2001 and 2002 showed that there were 
1,651 and 1,459 maritime injuries and fatalities in those years, 
respectively. Marine safety program performance results for fiscal year 
2003 were not available at the time we completed our work. The marine 
environmental protection program had not yet developed a performance 
measure in fiscal year 2001, but its results for fiscal years 2002 and 
2003 respectively showed that there were 43.3 and 29.4 spills (oil 
spills over 100 gallons and chemical spills) per 100 million tons of 
oil and chemicals shipped.

[17] For the purposes of this report, we were most interested in 
comparing performance results for our baseline year--fiscal year 2001-
-with the most currently available results--fiscal year 2003. As a 
result, we defined programs as "stable" or "improved" based on the 
known results for these two years. All programs defined as "stable" 
showed a differential of less than 4 percentage points when comparing 
fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2003 results.

[18] The marine environmental protection program also met its 
performance target in fiscal year 2003 but was not included in our 
analysis. Also, since the marine safety program does not yet have 
performance results for fiscal year 2003, discussing its target is not 
relevant here. 

[19] According to Coast Guard information, the C-2 level is defined as 
the level at which each unit possesses the resources and is trained to 
undertake most of the wartime missions for which it is organized or 
designed.

[20] The undocumented migrant interdiction performance measure 
indicates the percentage of migrants interdicted or deterred from 
entering the United States via maritime routes. More specifically, it 
is the number of interdicted migrants divided by the estimated flow of 
undocumented migrants (which includes the number of law enforcement 
interdictions, known successful migrant arrivals, and the estimated 
number of migrants deterred from leaving their countries of origin). 
This estimate is prepared annually by the Coast Guard's Intelligence 
Coordination Center.

[21] According to the Coast Guard, the 2002 and 2003 illegal migrant 
numbers stated here include only those counted in the undocumented 
migrant performance measure, which uses the following four migrant 
populations, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the People's 
Republic of China. The total number of all migrants interdicted in 
fiscal years 2002 and 2003 were 4,104 and 6,054 respectively.

[22] In recent years, the Coast Guard has been publicly recognized in 
several forums for its performance efforts including receiving one of 
the highest grades of 20 agencies identified by the Clinton 
administration as having a high impact on the American public. The 
Coast Guard was one of two agencies that received an agency grade of A 
in the Government Performance Project grading system--compiled by 
journalists from Government Executive and academics from the Maxwell 
School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University--and it 
was one of two agencies that received an A for managing for results. 
The criteria for managing for results included engaging in results-
oriented strategic planning; measuring progress toward results and 
accomplishments; using results for policymaking, management, and 
evaluation of progress; and communicating results to stakeholders. 

[23] Clarity issues relate to whether data in the measure could be 
confusing or misleading to users; objectivity issues relate to whether 
the performance assessment may be systematically over-or understated. 

[24] The Coast Guard reported that the number of illegal migrants 
entering the United States is an estimated flow number generated by the 
Coast Guard Intelligence Coordination Center and Immigration and 
Naturalization Services. And, according to the Coast Guard, because of 
the speculative nature of the information used, and the secretive 
nature of illegal migration, particularly where professional smuggling 
organizations are involved, the estimated potential flow of migrants 
may contain significant error.

[25] The ports, waterways, and coastal security program does not yet 
have a performance measure, the illegal drug interdiction and marine 
safety programs' performance results have not yet been calculated for 
fiscal year 2003, and we did not analyze performance results for the 
marine environmental protection program.

[26] U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: Effectively 
Implementing the Government Performance and Results Act (GAO/
GGD-96-118, June 1996); U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing for 
Results: Analytic Challenges in Measuring Performance (GAO/HEHS/
GGD-97-138, May 1997); and U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing for 
Results: Measuring Program Results That Are under Limited Federal 
Control (GAO/GGD-99-16).

[27] Responsibilities that are required under the Maritime 
Transportation Security Act (MTSA) (P. L. 107-295, November 25, 2002).

[28] According to a Coast Guard official, the results obtained from 
these two strategies (law enforcement units on navy ships and armed 
helicopters) are not mutually exclusive. In some cases, these two 
strategies worked in tandem, so there is some overlap in the seizure 
results.

[29] One additional program, other law enforcement (Other LE) also 
experienced an increase in resource hours. However, according to Coast 
Guard officials, it is likely that the surge in hours in fiscal year 
2002 was the result of a misinterpretation of port security activities. 
Some Coast Guard crew entered what should have been PWCS hours under 
Other LE because of their interpretation of this data category. Coast 
Guard officials took action in fiscal year 2003 to clarify the 
appropriate categorization of port security activities and the hours 
have subsequently declined. 

[30] For a fuller discussion of the framework, see Managing for 
Results: The Statutory Framework for Performance-Based Management and 
Accountability (GAO/AIMD/GGD-98-52, January 28, 1998).

[31] According to Coast Guard officials, performance measures for the 
ports, waterways, and coastal security program are under development. 

[32] Illegal drug interdiction was the only exception. Because its 
fiscal year 2003 performance results will not be calculated until the 
spring of 2004, we were unable to assess its results between fiscal 
years 2001 and 2003.

[33] According to Coast Guard officials, the undocumented migrant 
interdiction performance measure target was set at 87 percent based on 
a study done to incorporate deterrence as a measure of Coast Guard 
performance.

[34] The 2002 and 2003 illegal migrant numbers include only those 
counted in the undocumented migrant performance measure, which uses the 
following four migrant populations, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican 
Republic, and the People's Republic of China.

[35] The illegal drug interdiction performance result for fiscal year 
2003 will not be calculated until the Interagency Assessment of Cocaine 
Movement publishes its flow rate in spring 2004. 

[36] The illegal drug interdiction performance measure includes only 
cocaine, because cocaine has an analyzed flow rate and is the 
preponderant illegal drug.

[37] The target for the new illegal drug interdiction measure was set 
at 15 percent, determined by looking at the trend of seizures across 
agencies and forecasting out 1 year. Coast Guard officials said they 
will not be confident in the target for at least 3 years, when they are 
able to look at trends in the removal rate and adjust the target to 
reflect a more realistic goal. 

[38] The EEZ, established by the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery 
Conservation and Management Act, is the United States' maximum 
exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 miles from U.S. shores. 
Within the EEZ, U.S. citizens have primary harvesting rights to fish 
stocks. 

[39] The Coast Guard defines allisions as vessel collisions with fixed 
objects versus collisions, which are vessel collisions with moveable 
objects.

[40] According to Coast Guard information, the C-2 level is defined as 
the level at which each unit possesses the resources and is trained to 
undertake most of the wartime missions for which it is organized or 
designed.

[41] U.S. General Accounting Office, Coast Guard Strategy Needed for 
Setting and Monitoring Levels of Effort for All Missions (GAO-03-155, 
November 2002).

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