Press Releases

Opening remarks, as prepared, of Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Vice Chairman Addison McDowell (R-NC) from today’s hearing, entitled “Drugs, Thugs, and Fish: Examining Coast Guard Law Enforcement Effort”:

Thank you, everyone, for joining the Subcommittee today to discuss the Coast Guard’s law enforcement missions. Specifically, we want to highlight the amazing work our Coast Guard members do to stop drugs and illegal aliens along our maritime border, and the Service’s efforts to limit illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

To do that, I’d like to welcome our witnesses: Rear Admiral David C. Barata, Deputy Commandant for Operations Policy and Assistant Commandant for Intelligence for the United States Coast Guard; and Ms. Heather MacLeod, Director of Justice and Homeland Security Programs for the Government Accountability Office.

The Coast Guard is our premier maritime guardian. Every day, Coast Guard cutters, small boats, aircraft, and boarding teams are protecting Americans from threats.

The Coast Guard leads America’s efforts to control, secure, and defend the nation’s maritime border, starting at the United States southern border where President Trump declared a national emergency.

Illicit maritime activity is a national security threat with impacts far beyond our shores. The Coast Guard is essential to preventing dangerous drugs from poisoning our communities, boatloads of migrants from landing on our shores or perishing at sea on unseaworthy makeshift vessels, and countering Chinese efforts to plunder our fish stocks.

In November, Coast Guard Cutter STONE broke a record, offloading over 49,000 pounds of illicit narcotics, seized in 15 interdictions, valued at more than $362 million. This marked the most cocaine seized by a single cutter in one patrol in Coast Guard history. 

At the same time, the Coast Guard is addressing increasing levels of maritime migration by protecting our shores and securing and defending 260 miles of the Rio Grande River.  The Coast Guard’s unparalleled expertise is essential to deter, interdict, and defeat threats to our communities.

In 2020 the Coast Guard declared that IUU fishing replaced piracy as the leading global maritime security threat.

IUU fishing robs nations of their fish stocks, their food, and costs legal fishing operators tens of billions of dollars a year in revenue, and China is the world’s worst offender. The Chinese Communist Party provides billions of dollars in subsidies to its distant-water fishing fleet, which plunders fishing stocks worldwide.

Despite its best efforts, the Coast Guard’s ability to interdict drugs, aliens, and IUU fishing has long been hindered by a lack of resources both in physical assets and personnel. Through the $25 billion-dollar generational investment Congress authorized in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, we have helped change the tide with new vessels and aircraft coming online. But, there is more to be done.

In light of this subcommittee’s oversight role over the Coast Guard, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what the Coast Guard is doing well, where it can do better, and what it is doing to strengthen its capabilities.

In that same respect, I also look forward to hearing the Government Accountability Office’s evaluation of the Coast Guard’s mission performance.

Click here for more information from today’s hearing, including video and witness testimony.