Congress Considers Law to Create Secretary of the Coast Guard

 

Earlier this week, Senator Rick Scott introduced the Coast Guard Improvement Act, a bill that establishes the Secretary of the Coast Guard, a non uniformed individual who will oversee Coast Guard operations and report directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

I’ve spent the past twenty five years working with the Coast Guard - first as a Coast Guard officer, then as a Hill staffer responsible for the Coast Guard portfolio, Maritime Administration Chief Counsel, and registered lobbyist. These experiences taught me that a uniformed head of the agency hurts the service and the men and women who serve in it.

The person who has led the Coast Guard to date has always been a US Coast Guard Academy graduate. The school’s motto is Scientiae Cedit Mare, the sea yields to knowledge. The sea does indeed bring knowledge but in the case of the Coast Guard, decades of uniformed leaders failed to act on it.

Operation Fouled Anchor was a multi-year investigation into sexual assaults at the US Coast Guard Academy. The final memo signed January 31, 2020 concluded that “(t)hese early investigative efforts revealed that during the 1990s there appeared to be a disturbing pattern of conducting internal administrative investigations and/or initiating disenrollment for sexual misconduct instead of referring the matter for criminal investigation. This investigation expanded until it ultimately included allegations against 43 separate subjects.” 

Sexual assault is a crime now and in the 1990s. School leaders knew about the crimes; they had knowledge, but they didn’t act on it. 

The creation of a Secretary of the Coast Guard isn’t a new one. Nor is it a partisan one. When I served on the House Homeland Security Committee in the mid 2000s, I had several conversations with my counterpart on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about creating the position. At the time there was no political will to make the change.

Operation Fouled Anchor changed that. After numerous hearings wherein Admiral Fagan promised to be supportive of Congressional oversight efforts but then refused to share unredacted documents, Congress tired of the empty assurances that the agency was turning a corner.

Congress was also tired of Coast Guard admirals -all US Coast Guard Academy alumni - protecting the school at the cost of those who went there. Senator Blumenthal bluntly stated at a June 2024 hearing that "our investigation has shown a deep moral rot within the Coast Guard now . . . One that prioritizes cronyism over accountability, silence over survivors."

Installing a civilian as the head of the Coast Guard would wipe out the decades of cronyism. Senior officers would no longer be able to make a phone call or send an email to their US Coast Guard Academy classmates to cover up the failures of fellow officers. They would be forced to hold individuals accountable for their actions. And that’s a good thing.

K. Denise Rucker Krepp is a Coast Guard veteran and former chief counsel of the Maritime Administration.