PACS Steve Carleton
01-17-2006, 12:34 PM
Since this topic does in a sense fall under the Leadership realm, I'll post it here.
Thoughts?
On the United Press International website yesterday:
Adm. Allen tipped to head CG
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The head of the U.S. Coast Guard is stepping down in May and the White House is expected to nominate a successor shortly.
One administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because personnel decisions are confidential, told United Press International that the nominee would be Coast Guard Chief of Staff Vice Adm. Thad Allen.
Allen -- who burnished his reputation, and that of the agency, when he stepped in to take control of post-Katrina recovery operations from the disgraced and later fired head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown -- is "far and away the best qualified candidate," agreed Stephen Flynn.
Flynn, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran who went on to the National Security Council, serving the elder President Bush and his successor, President Clinton, said that Allen had been a favorite inside the agency long before his military bearing and take-charge manner helped reassure Americans that the Gulf Coast disaster area was in safe hands when he replaced Brown as the principle federal official responsible for the recovery effort.
"He's hit every button, and then some," said Flynn, now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, outlining Allen's career.
His first job as an admiral was as the Coast Guard's director of resources, where he wrote the agency's budget and developed long range plans.
Flynn said it was in that post that he worked with and became a protégé of the guard's then-Chief of Staff Adm. James Loy. As Loy rose to become commandant himself, he was widely seen as grooming Allen, who he gave command of the Coast Guard's Seventh District, covering South Carolina, Georgia, most of Florida and the Caribbean, which Flynn called "the most operationally important" of the guard's districts.
After a year there, Flynn said, he went on to be commander of the agency's Atlantic Area, effectively overseeing the two-thirds of the Coast Guard based east of the Rockies.
But Flynn cautioned against making predictions about the nomination, pointing out that "Allen was also widely expected to get the job four years ago," when Collins had been appointed instead.
Other administration officials confirmed that interviews had been conducted with hopefuls and that, in the words of one, "all the information needed has been gathered. We're just waiting for an announcement." But they declined to comment on the identity of the nominee.
Current Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas Collins was appointed for a four-year term that ends in May, said Spokeswoman Angela McArdle. She said that, although the law provided for the incumbent to be re-appointed, that was "very unusual."
She too cautioned against making any predictions. "There are a lot of qualified officers" in the agency, she said.
She said that the nomination would go through the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, which is the primary oversight panel for the Coast Guard, although the agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseen by a different committee.
Indeed, overlapping oversight and legislative authorities on Capitol Hill will pose an important challenge for the new commandant, say observers.
Last year, for example, the chairwoman and ranking democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Susan Collins of Maine and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, called on the administration to more than double the funding for the Coast Guard's 25-year recapitalization plan, called Deepwater.
Since it was first mooted more than 5 years ago Deepwater -- a plan to replace the agency's rapidly aging fleet of vessels used more than 50 miles from shore -- has come under fire for its extending timeframes and swelling price tag.
In June 2002, Integrated Coast Guard Systems -- a partnership between Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. -- won a $17 billion, 20-year contract to make the modernization happen. But the completion date has already been moved back.
Collins and Lieberman called on the White House Office of Management and Budget to ramp up spending in order to get the work done in a decade, saying the Coast guard needed the newer vessels as soon as possible to meet its new homeland security mission.
But shortly after, appropriators led by Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, slashed the Deepwater budget in half in one of the early versions of their spending bill, saying they were not satisfied with the information they were being provided with about how it was being spent.
The funding was restored in a later version of the bill, marked up after the telegenic spectacle of Coast Guard rescue vessels plucking stranded flood victims from rooftops in the gulf became one of the few bright spots in the nation's picture of the Katrina disaster.
But the most important problem that Deepwater presents for the incoming commandant is structural, say observers, who point out that the conflict over information about spending is often waged between the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress, with the agency more or less hapless in between.
The Office of Management and Budget is notoriously hostile to what is called "out-year" plans or commitments -- i.e. ones that commit the administration beyond the current annual budget cycle.
The Department of Defense has a special multi-year budget planning process, which enables it to contemplate huge projects like Deepwater, but across the rest of the government, White House budget officials traditionally are suspicious of "out-year" commitments because they restrict the room for maneuver of future budget planners.
Allen's supporters say that his experience and his profile will help him navigate such treacherous shoals.
He maintains a wide circle of professional contacts across the various U.S. national security institutions, according to Flynn.
"He is known to people in the White House, Pentagon, all over," he said.
If Allen gets the job, he will also have to negotiate a complex web of overlapping oversight authorities from congressional committees.
Thoughts?
On the United Press International website yesterday:
Adm. Allen tipped to head CG
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The head of the U.S. Coast Guard is stepping down in May and the White House is expected to nominate a successor shortly.
One administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because personnel decisions are confidential, told United Press International that the nominee would be Coast Guard Chief of Staff Vice Adm. Thad Allen.
Allen -- who burnished his reputation, and that of the agency, when he stepped in to take control of post-Katrina recovery operations from the disgraced and later fired head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown -- is "far and away the best qualified candidate," agreed Stephen Flynn.
Flynn, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran who went on to the National Security Council, serving the elder President Bush and his successor, President Clinton, said that Allen had been a favorite inside the agency long before his military bearing and take-charge manner helped reassure Americans that the Gulf Coast disaster area was in safe hands when he replaced Brown as the principle federal official responsible for the recovery effort.
"He's hit every button, and then some," said Flynn, now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, outlining Allen's career.
His first job as an admiral was as the Coast Guard's director of resources, where he wrote the agency's budget and developed long range plans.
Flynn said it was in that post that he worked with and became a protégé of the guard's then-Chief of Staff Adm. James Loy. As Loy rose to become commandant himself, he was widely seen as grooming Allen, who he gave command of the Coast Guard's Seventh District, covering South Carolina, Georgia, most of Florida and the Caribbean, which Flynn called "the most operationally important" of the guard's districts.
After a year there, Flynn said, he went on to be commander of the agency's Atlantic Area, effectively overseeing the two-thirds of the Coast Guard based east of the Rockies.
But Flynn cautioned against making predictions about the nomination, pointing out that "Allen was also widely expected to get the job four years ago," when Collins had been appointed instead.
Other administration officials confirmed that interviews had been conducted with hopefuls and that, in the words of one, "all the information needed has been gathered. We're just waiting for an announcement." But they declined to comment on the identity of the nominee.
Current Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas Collins was appointed for a four-year term that ends in May, said Spokeswoman Angela McArdle. She said that, although the law provided for the incumbent to be re-appointed, that was "very unusual."
She too cautioned against making any predictions. "There are a lot of qualified officers" in the agency, she said.
She said that the nomination would go through the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, which is the primary oversight panel for the Coast Guard, although the agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseen by a different committee.
Indeed, overlapping oversight and legislative authorities on Capitol Hill will pose an important challenge for the new commandant, say observers.
Last year, for example, the chairwoman and ranking democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Susan Collins of Maine and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, called on the administration to more than double the funding for the Coast Guard's 25-year recapitalization plan, called Deepwater.
Since it was first mooted more than 5 years ago Deepwater -- a plan to replace the agency's rapidly aging fleet of vessels used more than 50 miles from shore -- has come under fire for its extending timeframes and swelling price tag.
In June 2002, Integrated Coast Guard Systems -- a partnership between Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. -- won a $17 billion, 20-year contract to make the modernization happen. But the completion date has already been moved back.
Collins and Lieberman called on the White House Office of Management and Budget to ramp up spending in order to get the work done in a decade, saying the Coast guard needed the newer vessels as soon as possible to meet its new homeland security mission.
But shortly after, appropriators led by Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, slashed the Deepwater budget in half in one of the early versions of their spending bill, saying they were not satisfied with the information they were being provided with about how it was being spent.
The funding was restored in a later version of the bill, marked up after the telegenic spectacle of Coast Guard rescue vessels plucking stranded flood victims from rooftops in the gulf became one of the few bright spots in the nation's picture of the Katrina disaster.
But the most important problem that Deepwater presents for the incoming commandant is structural, say observers, who point out that the conflict over information about spending is often waged between the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress, with the agency more or less hapless in between.
The Office of Management and Budget is notoriously hostile to what is called "out-year" plans or commitments -- i.e. ones that commit the administration beyond the current annual budget cycle.
The Department of Defense has a special multi-year budget planning process, which enables it to contemplate huge projects like Deepwater, but across the rest of the government, White House budget officials traditionally are suspicious of "out-year" commitments because they restrict the room for maneuver of future budget planners.
Allen's supporters say that his experience and his profile will help him navigate such treacherous shoals.
He maintains a wide circle of professional contacts across the various U.S. national security institutions, according to Flynn.
"He is known to people in the White House, Pentagon, all over," he said.
If Allen gets the job, he will also have to negotiate a complex web of overlapping oversight authorities from congressional committees.