Blomberg is running a story about “non-profits” and the focus is on the American Bureau of Shipping, but it also suggest a too cozy relationship with the Coast Guard.

“Since 1998, ABS has hired four former Coast Guard admirals as executives. They include retired Admiral Robert Kramek, who led the Coast Guard as commandant from 1994 to 1998. It was Kramek who signed an agreement with ABS in 1995 that expanded the nonprofit’s powers to inspect independently owned ships on the Coast Guard’s behalf.”

Evidence of lax standards is suggested, based on the sinking of a tanker and the subsequent environmental damage, after it had been cleared for operation by the ABS in spite of an unfavorable report by one of their own agents.

“Rare details of ABS’s operations emerged following a disaster on the high seas. On Nov. 19, 2002, an oil tanker that had passed a recent ABS inspection split in half during a storm in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. The nonprofit company had approved the 26-year-old single-hulled Prestige, registered in the Bahamas, in May 2002.

“The wreck of the Prestige, 130 miles (225 kilometers) off the coast of Spain, spread more than 50,000 tons of fuel oil along hundreds of miles of Spanish and French beaches and disrupted fishing and tourism, causing damage estimated at more than $1 billion by the Spanish government.

“The Kingdom of Spain sued ABS in U.S. District Court in New York in 2003, claiming the company had behaved recklessly. In a sworn statement in that case, former Prestige Captain Efstratios Kostazos said he informed the tanker owner and ABS that he was leaving the ship two months before it sank.

“During my almost 40 years of going to sea, I have never seen a vessel in this poor condition that was still in actual service,” he wrote.

“Former ABS surveyor John Lee said in a sworn statement that he had inspected the Prestige on Dec. 13, 2000, and had refused to certify it.

““I was shocked and horrified by the general level of deterioration and condition of the vessel,” he wrote. Lee wrote that ABS allowed the ship to go to sea, despite his objections.”

Its an interesting tale, read the whole thing.

Credit Tim Cloton’s Maritime Memos for bringing this to my attention.

It is the 70th anniversary of the first of a pair of pivotal naval battles in Guadalcanal Campaign that ended Japanese night time dominance of the disputed waters around the Solomons Islands chain. This not a Coast Guard story, but it is a story that was important to me. Growing up in Atlanta, I saw the beautiful builder’s model of the USS Atlanta, and read about the desperate battle in which she was lost. It fueled my interest in ships.

In 2009 I was fortunate enough to participate in a project on the US Naval Institute Blog, organized by the “Steeljaw Scribe” to commemorate the Solomons Island Campaign and wrote the sections on the two naval battles fought 12 to 15 November.

The Solomons Campaign: The Battle of Guadalcanal, Part 1

The Solomons Campaign: The Battle of Guadalcanal, Part 2

These may not have been Coast Guard stories, but I’m sure it was the men of NOB Cactus, including many Coasties, who were pulling the survivors out of the water and helping to fight fires when the fighting ended.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Time to recognize and celebrate the creation of another great military service and American institution, the US Marine Corps, whose members trace their origin to this day in 1775. Even before the Declaration of Independence, the Marine Corps had made their first landing on a hostile shore.

Defense Industry Daily reported:

The Center for American Progress and the Institute for Policy Studies, two left-wing American think tanks, are advocating the implementation of a unified security budget, and defense budget cuts at the scale, but not in the shape, of the sequester. PDF report.

The basic aim seems to be to consider “all the tools” of national security and make tradeoffs between them. The authors appears to assume that this would move funds from DOD to Dept of State, to bring “better balance.”

A possible advantage of such a scheme, from a Coast Guard prospective, might be an expectation that some funding might be shifted from the Navy to the Coast Guard, but there is no assurance, given the Navy’s powerful influence, that it would not actually go the opposite direction. An H-65 is pictured on the cover, but the Coast Guard is mentioned only twice in the 119 page document, and in neither case is it in the context of considering the impact of this proposal on the CG budget.

Certainly the budget process in Congress appears broken. Coast Guard leaders must testify before a confusing plethora of committees and sub-committees, apparently so frequently, it adversely impacts their ability to do their jobs.

There is some indication that viewing all aspects of security as a whole is gaining some traction:

The Budget Control Act divided its mandated spending cuts in FY 2012 into two categories: “security,” which included the Departments of Defense, International Affairs, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs accounts, and “non-security,” which included all other discretionary account categories. (p. 7)

But this distinction was subsequently replaced by wording that distinguished only DOD and other.

Does this proposal have a ghost of a chance? Will it help? I waited to see if President Obama would be reelected before posting this, because a Republican win would have made it even more unlikely. Efforts to trade off among DOD, DHS, and State could just be another layer of bureaucracy heaped on top of the existing dysfunctional morass, but perhaps as part of a comprehensive restructuring, it might be useful, but it seems unlikely we will see a significant change.

The name I recognized in the group that made this proposal, and one of the two principle authors, was Lawrence J. Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress.

“Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the Center, he was director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Korb also served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations, and Logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. Korb served on active duty for four years as a naval flight officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of Captain. He has written 20 books and more than 100 articles on national security issues.

He’s not quite at the top level, but he is respected and not without influence.

Fiercehomelandsecurity is reporting the results of a study points out the effects of an up to  five meter rise in sea level on buildings in DC.

I don’t think anyone expects that in the near future, but seeing how much storm surge we had in New York as a result of Sandy (14 feet/4.3 meters), I don’t think we can assume we will never see a surge close to five meters.

Even though 5 meters exceeds the likely amount of sea-level rise for the next 100 years, the study (.pdf) says that level could be reached during storms. Affected buildings would include the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Education Department.

No federal buildings would be in the flooded area if sea levels were to rise 2.5-meters, the next lowest amount the study considered. Current predictions of the city’s sea-level rise, a result of climate change, range from 0.2 meters to more than 2 meters in the next 100 years, says the University of Maryland team behind the study.

Looking at my Google maps, it appears the land around Buzzard’s Point is two to three meters. Perhaps it is fortunate that the Coast Guard Headquarters is being moved to higher ground.

Relocation is expected to begin August, 2013. You can see more information about the new headquarters here.

I had known there have been limited areas where vessels’ speed has been restricted and had heard about speed limits to protect right whales, but this was the first time I have heard that anyone was considering restrictions on merchant shipping that might be applied globally.

The Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC) has proposed speed limits in the shipping sector as ‘the key to the fast and efficient reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships’ (MEPC 61/5/10). It has proposed to the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (IMO MEPC) to discuss mandatory speed controls.

———

As a rule of thumb, engine power output is a third power function of speed. Hence, when a ship reduces its speed by 10%, its engine power is reduced by 27%. Because it takes longer to sail a given distance at a lower speed, the energy required for a voyage is reduced by 19% (a quadratic function).

And the assumption is that emissions are in proportion to fuel usage. The study considered global regulation, regulation of shipping in the Arctic, and regulation of those ships that may trade with the EU. The particular consideration for the Arctic is that expanded ship operation in the Arctic will result in the deposit of black carbon that will accelerate global warming and threaten the eco-system.

The full report is available here: Slow Steaming CE Delft final.pdf

In considering this sort of regulation, undoubtedly the CG would be involve. And if it were enacted the CG would most likely be the agency to enforce it for the US.

A number of questions come to mind.

Since they advocate regulation based on speed over ground (because it is easier to enforce) instead of speed through the water, you could get in trouble taking advantage of favorable currents, might not ships be certified as being in compliance with the maximum speed limits and then be allowed to use both use full power and favorable currents without penalty?

Aren’t there other approaches that could reward innovation and investment in minimizing pollution without limiting speed? Would you get to go faster if you used atomic power or wind to augment or replace the fossil fuel power? Or if you used cleaner fuel like LNG?

Is it likely? Soon? National Law or International Treaty? (See pdf beginning page 72) It would depend on how extensive and comprehensive it would be. Local systems, or restrictions specific to those vessels that trade with a particular market could happen relatively quickly. Comprehensive Treaties might take decades, before implementation.

The study also includes an interesting chart (p. 105) listing the average transit speeds of various types and sizes of merchant ships observed in 2007 (before the onset of elevated fuel prices which have resulted in a general slowing of transit speeds as a way to reduce cost.)

The Acquisitions Directorate  (CG-9) web site has a profile of the project manager for the Offshore Patrol Cutter program (CG-9322), Capt. Douglas Schofield. Sounds like he has first hand experience with the problems of continuing to run the legacy fleet.

There is also a short piece by Master Chief Petty Officer Brett F. Ayer about how platform requirements are determined.

The Center for International Maritime Security (cimsec.org) has a story on development of an Unmanned Surface Vessel. It is based on an 11 meter RHIB. (Actually in this case it looks like the Israeli firm engineered the system and the USN, BAE, and Lockeed engineered the labels, signs, and advertising.)

Still a similar system might be useful for the Coast Guard. It could provide another radar and electro-optical unit remote from the (or shore station) that launched it. It can be kept on scene longer than a manned boat, because operators can be cycled through on watches periodically, and get rest, sleep, and hot meals, rather than either being exposed in a small boat for long periods or having to return to the cutter for crew change.

This provides an additional search unit increasing the area searched by a cutter in the same way a helicopter does. It is not as fast, but more persistent and cheaper to operate.

You just have to love this photo:

“Positioning the Spencer in New York Harbor gives me on-scene command and control, supplements units impacted by the storm, and offers the very best response to the people of New York and New Jersey.” – Rear Adm. Dan Abel. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, homeported in Boston, deployed to New York Harbor to assist in the search and rescue response and is acting as a communications hub for post Hurricane Sandy response efforts.

From the Coast Guard’s Facebook page. The photo looks even better there and at this point 86 comments with more coming in all the time.