Mr. BURTON. Did you ask for that before or after the President's message? Admiral BENKERT. I think this number has been in generation for approximately some 3 to 4 months now, looking toward some augmentation of our forces for enforcement. Mr. BURTON. You started with 125 having a feeling that you were going to get this new responsibility? Admiral BENKERT. Yes, sir, as far as the foreign flag tanker boarding program. Mr. EVANS. I think the hand of OMB is long indeed under Mr. Lance also. I will accept those figures. You said that only about 12 percent of the vessels are boarded although your policy aims at about a 20- to 25-percent boarding rate. Do you think that that additional 125 personnel will give you that capacity to double your boarding rate? Admiral BENKERT. I think so. You must remember that when we talk about boarding of tankers today we are talking about several different things. We are talking about boarding of tankers in a monitoring of cargo handling procedure. We are talking about boarding of tankers in an examination of them for compliance with the oil pollution regulations which we have been doing 100 percent. We are also talking about the boarding of foreign tankers for observation of safety problems the program that I mentioned a little earlier that we started several months ago and which we would intend to amplify in compliance with the President's directive. Those are several different types of approach to the same vessels. Mr. EVANS. Your boarding policies, inspections, so forth, are oriented primarily toward safety inspection; is my understanding correct that it is primarily port oriented? Is that the only feasible way to go about this? Where is this boarding taking place and where should it be taking place for this protection? Admiral BENKERT. I think it is taking place where it should and where we can legally implement this type of program. Mr. EVANS. That is in the ports? Admiral BENKERT. In our ports. We do some boarding while vessels are at anchor. We do some boarding-the majority of them—are done dockside. Mr. EVANS. Your enforcement authority extends where-to the 3mile limit, to the 12-mile limit-since we have so many limits these days exactly where does that begin? Admiral BENKERT. I guess it depends on which statutes you are talking about. I would defer to my legal colleague here, if I might. Mr. BURTON. Would you identify him for the record? Admiral BENKERT. Yes, sir. Commander BURGESS. I am Commander Burgess. Admiral BENKERT. Commander Burgess is attached to our chief counsel's office, Mr. Chairman. Commander BURGESS. AS Admiral Benkert said, depending on which statutes you are talking about you have different enforcement areas. Under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act we have authority up to 12 miles. The safety statutes we have apply in our navigable waters which is within our 3 miles. Our normal boarding process in terms of implementation of regulation and statutes is done within our navigable waters and normally within our ports, either at the dock or at anchor or in some cases when the vessels are, in fact, underway in our navigable waters. Mr. EVANS. If you could supply for my information and perhaps the rest of the committee as to exactly at what distance these various statutes-which you are charged with enforcing-are implemented. Would you please do that? If you could give us some of the conflicts within these laws. It's perhaps something the subcommittee may want to consider later on. That ends my questioning here. Mr. BURTON. Without objection, the material will be inserted in the record at this point. [The information referred to follows:] The Oil Pollution Statutes and their Jurisdictional Distances are: Title and distance (1) The Ports and Waterways Safety Act (territorial waters) (2) The Refuse Act of 1899 (territorial waters). (3) The Tank Vessel Act (territorial waters). (4) The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (contiguous zone). (5) The Oil Pollution Act 1961 (U.S. vessels) (prohibited zone) Miles 3 3 3 1 12 50 The International Convention for Prevention of the Sea by Oil 1954 (Foreign Vessels) The conflicts are overlapping jurisdiction. 1 Authority over nontransportation related facilities extends only to the limits of territorial waters-3 miles. COAST GUARD AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR VESSEL BOARDINGS, EXAMINATIONS, INSPECTION, AND DETENTIONS 46 U.S.C. 170, 49 U.S.C. 1801-12. Regulatory authority National Security Council Decision Memo- 46 CFR 146-8, 49 CFR 1.46(1), 49 CFR Vessel detentions and denials. entry 50 U.S.C. 191, 33 U.S.C. 1221-7. 33 CFR 6, 33 CFR 160. Intra-Coast Guard responsibility COTP-G-W, G-WLE, G-WLE-1 (CG Org. Man., 11-230, 243, 244). (11-244: COTP-G-W, G-WLE, G-WLE-1 (CG Org. Man., 11-230, 243, 244). (11-244: COTP/OCMI-Same as Tank Vessel Boardings plus: G-M, G-MHM, G-MHM-1 COTP-G-W, G-WEP, G-WEP-3 (CG Org. Man., 11-240, 241). (11-241: "Develop OCMI-G-M, G-MVI, G-MVI-1 (CG Org. Man., 11-139, 158, 159). (11-159: COTP-G-W, G-WLE (CG Org. Man., 11-230, 243). (11-243: "Direct the activities of the Captain of the Port program"). Admiral BENKERT. I might add, Mr. Evans, that it does present some problems when you start talking about foreign flag vessels and the applicability of statutes to those vessels. In addition we have the present ongoing law of the sea deliberations which our State Department and our Administration are very deeply involved in with the international community. This in the long run may have some very definite effect on enforcement and statutory authority depending upon territorial waters and other types of limitations of areas of jurisdiction. Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Admiral. Mr. BURTON. Mr. Walker. Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At least in the public perception it seems to me that the whole business of oil spills has taken on an increasing amount of attention in recent months-let's say over the last 2 years. Is that a media created kind of thing or have we had more problems with oil spills; has there been a quantitative increase in the last 18 to 24 months? Admiral BENKERT. I think that probably our statistics would show that we have had-and they may not be too valid in this respect-but we have had increases in the number of spills within our navigable waters. But you have to temper these statistics with the fact that up until roughly the last 3 years we haven't had any good statistics at all on oil spills in our waters. It was not until the passage of the FWPCA and the implementation of that act that we started keeping good records and that we had a true handle on this situation. I must say-and this is purely a personal view-I think that there has been through the media, and perhaps rightly so, an increased awareness of oil pollution problems. I do feel myself that some of the situations that have arisen have been blown out of proportion as to what they have really amounted to. Mr. WALKER. Does it seem logical that before we embark upon a program of some sort that we ought to be doing some studying if, in fact, there has been an increase over the last few months? Would it seem logical that we ought to be trying to figure out just exactly why there has been an increase all of a sudden? Maybe you have those kinds of answers. Is it because we are importing more oil or is it because the equipment that has been around for 20 or 25 years is wearing out and is more susceptible to oil spills? What kind of monitoring have you done as to the reason why-within the last several months there seems to be more of a problem within our navigable waters? Admiral BENKERT. I think that one of the things that you must take into account within this last several months is the fact that we have had a very severe winter this year. Some of the casualties which have occurred either in or near our waters that have received a great deal of publicity have been the result of severe weather conditions. The winter has been abnormal. Mr. WALKER. You mentioned before 85 percent human error. Is the weather condition the net result of greater human error or greater equipment failure? Admiral BENKERT. I would say that several of the casualties have been directly as a result of human error. The most publicized being the case of the Argo Merchant which, in my opinion, is a pure case of poor navigation on the part of the personnel aboard the vessel. We have had other vessels in this period of time that you mentioned where we have had casualties that have been a direct result of the weather and not of personnel. We've lost several ships off the east coast-not U.S.-flag vessels, foreign-flag vessels. In our inland waterways we have had a number of spills from barges and so on which have been the direct result of weather problems. Mr. WALKER. What I'm getting around to is if you have this much human error that we see just beginning to increase-we have problems connected with the weather but that may be in a large part because of inexperienced crewmen-is this directly related to the fact that we are increasing the amount of foreign oil that is coming into this country? Has this resulted in foreign governments having to put on more crews which result in more inexperienced people manning these crews? Admiral BENKERT. No; I don't think so. I wouldn't say there was a direct correlation to that last statement that you made. It is certainly a fact that we are importing far more oil today than we were 2 or 3 years ago. Our importation of oil today has practically doubled in that time from foreign sources. I would say this. This whole question of personnel in the marine business is a very difficult subject to tackle in a sense of either regulation or law. It's a matter of training and a setting up of qualifications, enforcement of that, a sticking to that requirement, and professional integrity of the personnel involved. Over the last 4 to 5 years we have been engaged in a great deal of research work within the Coast Guard and in other areas-the National Academy of Sciences, the Maritime Administration-here in this country and in other countries. The IMCO forum has made a number of studies on personnel and one outgrowth of these studies is this convention which we have coming up this next year. We fully anticipate this will home in on this business of personnel qualifications to set better standards. The personnel problem is very difficult to get a handle on. We know what the problems are in that accidents are caused by people. We are trying to alleviate this by increasing our requirements but, perhaps more importantly, increasing the training of personnel. In this country the Maritime Administration, as an example, in conjunction with the Coast Guard, has augmented and is amplifying our programs. We are looking toward such things as simulator training for bridge personnel. We have in recent years developed in some of our labor organizations, and some of our management people who operate vessels have developed their own training means for their own personnel. We think that this is the answer and this is what our research in this area is showing us. This is a very difficult problem. Mr. WALKER. Do I understand you correctly to say that you don't think there is any correlation between the amount of oil spills and the amount of oil that we are shipping into the country? Admiral BENKERT. I think your risk increases because if you import-let's put this way. In the United States because of the shallow depth of our ports you have limitations on the size of vessels than can enter U.S. ports. If you double your oil which you import essentially this means you are doubling the number of visits of vessels |