Coast Guard: A More Systematic Process to Resolve Recommended Actions Could Enhance Future Surge Operations
Fast Facts
From 2007-2020, the U.S. Coast Guard conducted 23 major surge operations—high-intensity, short-notice emergency responses to catastrophic events, like hurricanes or oil spills. During these surges, the Coast Guard deployed varying numbers and types of personnel, aircraft, and vessels based on event severity and duration.
The Coast Guard documents lessons learned and best practices from surge operations—developing recommendations to improve future surges. But, the Coast Guard does not have a systematic process in place to track, update, and resolve all recommendations. We recommended that it establish such a process.
The U.S. Coast Guard conducting surge operations in response to the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill in 2010
Highlights
What GAO Found
From 2007 through 2020, the Coast Guard conducted 23 major surge operations—high-intensity, short-notice efforts to respond to catastrophic events or emergencies, such as hurricanes, oil spills, and humanitarian events. To support these surge operations, the Coast Guard deployed varying levels of personnel, aircraft, and vessels according to the events’ severity and duration.
Photo of Coast Guard Personnel Responding to Hurricane Harvey (2017)
The Coast Guard documents lessons learned and best practices from its major surge operations and develops recommended actions to help improve future operations. The Coast Guard also has processes for assigning recommended actions to appropriate headquarters offices and field units. However, GAO’s analysis of Coast Guard data on major surge operations shows that it has not met its goals of (1) resolving 80 percent of recommended actions or (2) resolving the actions within 18 months of being assigned. GAO analysis also found that Coast Guard headquarters offices have a higher proportion of unresolved recommended actions compared with field units. The Coast Guard Strategic Plan for 2018-2022 calls for acting on lessons learned and best practices from surge events as important factors for improving emergency management. However, the Coast Guard lacks assurance that recommended actions to address surge operation deficiencies are tracked, updated, and resolved in line with program goals. Without a more systematic process to help ensure that this occurs, the Coast Guard may not address identified issues that could affect its ability to effectively conduct future surge operations.
The Coast Guard was generally able to meet statutory mission performance targets in years that it also conducted surge operations. While Coast Guard data showed variation in mission activities in years with concurrent or back-to-back surge operations, GAO was not able to determine the effect that surge operations had on mission activities because of multiple factors beyond surge operations, such as personnel transfers, that can also affect mission activities. Additionally, Coast Guard officials did not identify any statutory or regulatory impediments to the Coast Guard’s ability to conduct surge operations.
Why GAO Did This Study
The U.S. Coast Guard has multimission responsibilities to support response efforts and help protect life, property, and the environment. The Coast Guard must often rely on surge operations to reduce the impacts of catastrophic events, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in 2017.
The William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 includes a provision for GAO to review the Coast Guard’s surge capacity to respond to catastrophic events. This report addresses (1) the number of major surge operations the Coast Guard conducted from 2007 through 2020, and what personnel and assets it used to support these operations; (2) the extent the Coast Guard documents lessons learned and best practices from its major surge operations and resolves related recommended actions; and (3) how surge operations have affected the Coast Guard's ability to conduct its statutory missions. GAO reviewed, among other things, documentation from Coast Guard surge operations from 2007 through 2020; analyzed after-action reports and performance metrics; and interviewed Coast Guard officials.
Recommendations
GAO recommends that the Coast Guard establish a more systematic process for ensuring that recommended actions are tracked, updated, and resolved in line with Coast Guard goals. The Department of Homeland Security concurred with this recommendation.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| United States Coast Guard | The Commandant of the Coast Guard should establish a more systematic process for ensuring that assigned recommended actions are tracked, updated, and resolved in line with the Coast Guard's resolution rate and timeliness goals. (Recommendation 1) |
DHS and the Coast Guard concurred with this recommendation and, in its official agency response letter, identified five actions that the Coast Guard would take to implement the recommendation. In July 2024, the Coast Guard informed GAO that four of the five actions had been completed. Specifically, by February 2023 the Coast Guard had developed and implemented a tracking sheet with metrics published monthly in a newsletter; had updated the Commandant Instruction 3010.19 to clarify roles of action offices and requirements for resolution; and reviewed outstanding recommended actions with ongoing outreach to lead offices and supporting offices. By January 2024, the Coast Guard completed a fourth action by creating new fields in the Contingency Preparedness System (CPS) that enables the ability to identify and sort recommended actions by lead and supporting offices. Finally, the fifth action the Coast Guard plans to take in order to implement the recommendation is to create CPS dashboards showing progress toward resolution of outstanding recommended actions, as well as generate automatic notifications to action officers to inform them of progress toward resolution. According to the Coast Guard, it had requested funding for fiscal year 2024, and plans to complete this within two years of funding being made available. We will continue to monitor the Coast Guard's progress in implementing this recommendation, which is dependent on funding the final required action.
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