Coast Guard Authorization Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Oberstar and Chairman Thompson for their very diligent and intense work on this very important bill touching so closely to the topic of national security and making sure that our borders are secure and people are safe.

We have taken great strides in the last few years to ensure that our coasts, our rivers, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports and ships are safer than perhaps they were before. But the reality is that they are, as we all know, still vulnerable to attack.

With more than 95,000 miles of shoreline, more than 290,000 square miles of water and approximately 70 million recreational boats in the United States, the United States Coast Guard and local first responders simply cannot protect our Nation's waterways on their own. Individual citizens are often in the best position to notice suspicious activities that may be early indicators of terrorist activity. Any observations of suspicious or unusual activity could be extremely valuable to our national security, so we need a system in place to train volunteers to report their findings.

The amendment that I offer this evening strengthens, streamlines, and improves the national effort to engage local citizens in the fight to protect our waterways through the America's Waterway Watch Program. This program is an essential step toward improving our national maritime and homeland security outreach and awareness strategy, educating industry and the public on the need to be vigilant and to report suspicious activity. The amendment aims to develop a system to collect and share these reports.

My amendment would authorize full funding for this program for the very first time, allowing the Coast Guard to fulfill the promise of the program by providing resources, training support and awareness of best practices to our Nation's small vessel owners, recreational boaters, tugboat operators, fishermen and marina operators, those people who are day in and day out closest to where activity is likely to occur.

In the spirit of national security and with the support of the United States Coast Guard and the House Homeland Security Committee, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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