PORT SECURITY USES MORE OF COAST GUARD'S TIME

WASHINGTON - The Coast Guard spent 2,263 fewer duty hours on search and
rescue this spring and 4,322 fewer hours than last year on drug
interdiction, fanning concerns that port security duties will limit
traditional missions.

A new congressional analysis - among the first to measure trade-offs among
competing priorities as a result of the war on terrorism - found Coast
Guard boats and aircraft devoted 9 percent fewer operational hours to
rescue missions from April through June of this year compared with the same
period last year.

Other missions were squeezed harder, from drug interdiction, which saw a 15
percent drop in hours, to environmental protection, which plunged by 53
percent.

Instead, Coast Guard units spent 30,805 additional hours on port security -
more than an eight-fold increase.

"The traditional missions haven't disappeared," said Sen. Patty Murray,
D-Wash. "We still need the Coast Guard to keep drugs and illegal migrants
off our shores, to protect our environment ... and to protect the lives of
our fishermen."

Murray chairs the Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee, and
her staff analyzed the data, which is the most recent available. An aide
said the April through June period was chosen for its distance from the
aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

While port security has become a top responsibility since Sept. 11, Cmdr.
Jim McPherson, a senior Coast Guard spokesman, said rescues always will
take precedence.

"If we get a search-and-rescue case, we are going to prosecute it to the
end," McPherson said. "We would be able to shift assets from port
security." He also questioned whether comparing two three-month periods is
enough.

No reports have emerged of lives lost at sea as a result of security duties.