Coast Guard Shore Infrastructure: Processes for Improving Resilience Should Fully Align with DHS Risk Management Framework

The U.S. Coast Guard is the principal federal agency charged with ensuring the security and safety of the high seas and other waters subject to U.S. jurisdiction. To help carry out its missions, the Coast Guard owns or leases more than 20,000 shore facilities-such as piers, boat stations, air facilities, and housing units-at more than 2,700 locations. However, this infrastructure is often positioned along the nation's coastlines and can be vulnerable to damage from extreme weather and other natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. For example, Coast Guard facilities along the East and Gulf coasts of the United States are vulnerable to hurricanes-which NOAA projects will increase in frequency and severity because of climate change and may cause flooding or wind damage to Coast Guard infrastructure. During audit work that we conducted from July 2018 to September 2019, we found that in 2015, the Coast Guard began an assessment of certain occupied buildings to identify their vulnerabilities to ten natural hazards, including hurricanes and earthquakes. While the Coast Guard had identified some vulnerable shore infrastructure through its ongoing assessment, it had not identified all shore assets that may be vulnerable, such as piers and runways; or assessed operational risks affecting its ability to complete missions with these assets. We reported that although the Coast Guard aimed to complete its assessment by 2025, the Coast Guard's assessment had only covered approximately 16 percent of the Coast Guard's shore infrastructure as of 2018. We also found that Coast Guard processes to improve shore infrastructure resilience did not fully align with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) key steps for critical infrastructure risk management-steps described in DHS's Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Framework, which recommends that DHS components, among other things, identify critical infrastructure, assess risks, and implement risk management activities. Moreover, at the time of our review, Coast Guard data showed a growing backlog of at least $2.6 billion in recapitalization, new construction, and deferred maintenance projects that compete for finite funding. However, Coast Guard officials were unable to verify that they have consistently selected projects to also enhance resilience. Coast Guard officials stated that they had not used the DHS framework and instead focused on implementing their ongoing vulnerability assessment. As a result of our audit work, the Coast Guard undertook steps to ensure that the Deputy Commandant for Mission Support implemented risk management processes that more fully align with the five key steps outlined in DHS's Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Framework to better guide agency shore infrastructure investment decisions. For example, in September 2019, the Coast Guard published its Component Plan for Resilience which established a Resilience Planning Committee and prioritizes identifying resilience gaps and potential solutions among other priorities. The Coast Guard also published its Civil Engineering Work Plan in Fiscal Year 2021 that includes among other things, two priorities that specifically focus on shore infrastructure resilience. Furthermore, in support of its stated goals to strategically incorporate resilience into shore infrastructure planning the Coast Guard published engineering design guidance intended to ensure that the Coast Guard's buildings and some key supporting infrastructure such as waterfront structures and utilities are resilient. Taken together, these efforts represent notable steps toward identifying risk management activities that, when completed, could help promote a more resilient shore infrastructure program that is more closely aligned with the DHS framework and better positions the Coast Guard to reduce its future fiscal exposure to the effects of extreme weather events.