In the January 2012 edition of Sea Technology magazine, l outlined the challenges facing the U.S. House Coast Guard and MaritimeTransportation Subcommittee in providing the U.S. Coast Guard with stable funding, maintaining personnel levels, reforming the service's authorities and improving operations to reduce costs and inefficiencies. One year later, the difficulties of trying to balance shrinking federal budgets with growing maintenance costs for an aging fleet remain and, in some ways, have been compounded by Congress' delay in passing a multiyear Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Authorization Act. The onus again falls on the subcommittee to protect the Coast Guard from budgetary politics of Capitol Hill while positioning the service to continue to meet the needs of its current myriad missions and future demands.
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