By Contact: Mary Kerr, (202)225-6260
Statement of
The Honorable James L. Oberstar
Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
Hearing on
“Qualifications and Credentialing of Mariners: A Continuing Examination”
October 7, 2009
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling today’s hearing to follow up with the Coast Guard on the improvements and progress of the its National Maritime Center. Your continued oversight and follow up on key issues are a testament of your leadership as the Chairman of this Subcommittee and it demonstrates your commitment to U.S. mariners.
I would like to commend the Coast Guard for its hard work and dedication in addressing some of the major deficiencies experienced at the National Maritime Center. According to the Coast Guard’s testimony, it has decreased its credential net processing time from 55 days at the end of July, to 26 days at the end of September. It also eliminated the 6,800 credential backlog that plagued the service in July.
I am interested in learning how the Coast Guard made such progress since the last National Maritime Center hearing in July. I would also like to hear how the Coast Guard will prevent such occurrences from ever happening again. A mariner’s credential is his livelihood, and mariners have a right to expect the Coast Guard to produce credentials in a reasonable time frame. Right now, that is being done with a net processing time of 26 days.
I would like to thank Rear Admiral Cook and Captain Stalfort for being here today and look forward to your testimony.
###
Statement of
The Honorable Elijah E.Cummings
Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
Hearing on
“Qualifications and Credentialing of Mariners: A Continuing Examination”
October 7, 2009
The Subcommittee convenes today to follow up on a hearing we convened on July 9th of this year to examine the revisions that had recently been made in the processes the Coast Guard uses to issue merchant mariner credentials.
At the time of that hearing, the consolidation of all credentialing services at the new National Maritime Center (NMC) and the roll-out of the new Merchant Mariner Credential – and related technical and procedural issues – had created a backlog of 6,800 applications sitting in boxes at the NMC waiting for review and approval. That backlog represented 6,800 mariners waiting to receive their credentials.
At the time of that earlier hearing, the Coast Guard indicated that the average gross processing time for a credential application from the beginning of 2009 through June 23rd had been 80 days. I note that gross processing time includes all of the time the Coast Guard requires to move a credential through its internal review processes as well as the time the service spends waiting for an applicant to submit additional required information.
At the time of the July hearing, the average net processing time – meaning just the time the Coast Guard requires to move an application through the processes it controls – was 48 days, and only 35 percent of credential applications were being completely processed in 30 or fewer days. A mariner’s credential is that individual’s ticket to work; without it, a mariner cannot earn a living in the maritime industry. Particularly in this economic climate, bureaucratic delays that may threaten a mariner’s ability to work are completely unacceptable.
Because of the urgent need to ensure that the Coast Guard can issue a credential within a reasonable amount of time, assuming an applicant submits all required information, I asked Admiral Cook and Captain Stalfort during our July hearing when they thought they could correct the problems plaguing the credentialing process and eliminate the backlog. They indicated that they could resolve the problems by September and I promised that the Subcommittee would reconvene in October to receive an update.
As I have repeatedly said, I believe it is critical to Congress’ oversight function that whenever a commitment is made by an agency to address an outstanding problem, the Congress ensures that the commitment is kept. I also believe the best way we can do that is to convene a follow-up hearing, and it is for that reason that we are convening today. I am very pleased to see that the Coast Guard appears to have met its goal. I will let Admiral Cook and Captain Stalfort discuss in more detail the numbers they have to report.
That said, reports published by the NMC on the Center’s website indicate that the backlog has been eliminated and that the time it takes the Coast Guard to process a credential application has dropped significantly. This is precisely the news we hoped and expected to hear and precisely the news mariners deserve.
The credentialing process is among the most basic regulatory functions the Coast Guard performs. It isn’t necessarily the service’s most glamorous mission, but it is critical to maritime safety and to the lives and careers of individual mariners, and it is therefore absolutely essential that the credentialing process be managed effectively and efficiently.
During today’s hearing, we also hope to take a closer look at issues related to the medical examinations required for mariners, including the seemingly troubled roll-out of the new Merchant Mariner medical forms as well as the implications both on the merchant marine and on the NMC’s functions and processes of new international medical standards. Now that the NMC appears to be able to manage its current workload, we must ensure that any future process changes do not again create backlogs and delays.
###
