Club a little later, and human caused disasters such as the deep Horizon Oil Spill in the gulf of mexico. Additionally, the coast guard rescues more than 3,000 people each year and searches for boaters who go missing such as the two teenagers who disappeared off the coast of florida recently. As the smallest military force and the only one with Law Enforcement authority, the coast guard has had a role in the defense of the United States for 225 years. In fact yesterday was the coast guards birthday. Today admiral zukunft will discuss the challenges for the coast guard such as congressional budget struggles a welldebated Cyber Security plan, maintaining a zero tolerance for Sexual Assault and a fleet in high need of modernization and sheer numbers to tackle the next 225 years. Please give a warm National Press club welcome to the commandant of the United States coast guard admiral paul zukunft zukunft. [ applause ] jeff, thank you for the flattering introduction, and i had a chance to meet many of you before, and i just want to thank you. Theres a lot of places you could be right now, but im just delighted that youre here to learn a little bit more about what i would say the little engine that could, the United States coast guard, whose roots trace back to august 4th 1790 and i will tell a little bit about our history talk a little bit about the present talk a little bit about the future and then really open it up to question and answer and just have a very spontaneous dialogue recognizing everything we say is on the record. So this has been a phenomenal week for the coast guard. I just returned from grand haven, michigan. Its called coast guard city usa. Its a city of about 10000, but this weekend it was a city of 200,000 here to celebrate the United States coast guard. And every coast guard man and woman walking the streets of grand haven michigan young teenagers not giving us flack but saying we love the coast guard. You cannot come back to washington, d. C. , with a better feeling than after spending a little bit of time in coast guard city usa, grand haven. Yesterday we unveiled the forever stamp in commemoration of the United States coast guard. 15 million stamps printed because many times most folks dont realize what the coast guard does on a daytoday basis. Im honored to be here with you today. Tomorrow i will be on the pitching mound of nationals stadium to throw an opening pitch, but more importantly on saturday ill be in boston, massachusetts, as we commission our fifth National Security cutter, which is really paying huge dividends and ill tell a little bit about one of those National Security cutters a little bit later on in my remarks. Monday ill be in san diego for the ship thats going to return and i will tell you that story later, and this is going to be a big media event, a very big shoe if you will. And then on thursday ill be in havana, cuba, and so well be opening the embassy the following day. I will be involved in bilateral discussions with the government of cuba with our u. S. Interest section there and then secretary kerry, as you may know will be there on the 14th as we open up the embassy in cuba. So a little different than the coast guard that Alexander Hamilton envisioned 225 years ago as i rattle off whats on my schedule for just the next two weeks, and the good thing is this is a slow twoweek period. It actually picks up after that and its going to cover the asiapacific region as well, cover the arctic. We have a lot going on over there as well. The coast guard many times we find ourselves on all seven continentses across the globe, including antarctica. Today we have two special people who are with us here today. Right now were only on five of the seven continents, but well get back to all seven of those. Join us first of all, is Lieutenant Commander natalie best. She was a Commanding Officer of a patrol boat serving for Central Command in the straits between iran and bahrain. So she was the Commanding Officer of that cutter and i just want to make a point that since 1978 every military occupational specialty in the coast guard has been open to women, and they literally hit the ball out of the park deployed for a year. Young child at home, and its great to have you back and we brought her back to washington, d. C. [ applause ] and you also heard introduced petty officer riota jenai. Hes an information specialist. He works at an area where we cant say a lot about what they do behind locked doors but hes also a linguist, and he served on the coast card cutter melon that was involved in a multilateral operation. Not an exercise. Working with china, japan korea, russia canada, and the u. S. , but really u. S. Led and he was our linguist, our japanese linguist because its really hard to do combined operations if you cant speak a universal language, and weve been operating in this domain now for a number of years under the auspices of what we call the North Pacific coast guard forum, and it really is a model of collaboration and effort with some of our key asia specific partners. Thank you for your work over there. [ applause ] so imagine if you will, its august 4th 1790. The Continental Navy was disbanded. The last ship was auctioned off in 1785, so while we emerged as victors from the revolutionary war, we were very much a bankrupt nation. And our first secretary of treasury Alexander Hamilton, probably a champion of the understatement said, if we had ten sentinels posted at our ports, might they do some good for the prosperity of our nation . A tariff act was passed before that, but you had pirates, you had people bypassing our tariff laws, and so quite honestly we were a maritime nation but without any Maritime Governance whatsoever, and so Alexander Hamilton had this vision that we would charter ten revenue cutters, and then he wrote a letter to each one of those Commanding Officers. He wasnt so big on the specifications of those ten ships. He said somewhere between 36, 40 feet, and by the way each one shall cost 1,000 a piece. He sent these Commanding Officers out to build them. The first one came in at 2,500 2. 5 times its initial acquisition cost. Today our Acquisition Program our total acquisition portfolio, our growth is less than 2 and so we won four of eight of the federal acquisition awards last year. Weve come a little bit some way since 1790 but the most important piece that Alexander Hamilton charged those Commanding Officers is to be mindful that we are a country of free men and we are impatient of those who dont have a temperant attitude and abuse the rights of our citizens of the United States. And it was that letter to those Commanding Officers that really lives within the dna of the coast guard today and its reflected in our core values, honor, respect and devotion to duty. Last year we used aviation use of force where we used sniper rounds to disable outboard engines, and we did that nearly once each week last year. And there wasnt one Person Injured during those interactions. Just yesterday there was a boater in seattle shooting weapons at police officers. Coast guard came in we surrounded him and we used the most powerful instrument, the strongest muscle in our body which has the least restraint our tongue. And we were able to talk this person down. If you go back to Alexander Hamiltons charge be mindful that we are a country of free men, i am very mindful of the fact how heavy handed Law Enforcement tactics play out on cnn, and so you do not see the coast guard of yesterday or today involved in any of these heavyhanded Law Enforcement tactics. Its not me, but it really gets back to the dna of our people serving on the front lines of our coast guard today. So i could not be more proud of what they do. Fast forward to present day, and i talked about one of our National Security cutters. We have been a member of the National Intelligence community for some time now so were not only an armed service, a Law Enforcement service, were also a member of the National Intelligence community and when im in san diego this monday, i will meet the coast guard cutter vatton stratton stratton. Theyre coming off a 4 1 2 month deployment. They have to come in because right now theyre probably their load line is below water because of the 32plus metric tons of cocaine that they have interdicted on one patrol. Not one bust. These are multiple interdictions over a 4 1 2 month period. All of this driven by intelligence. Last year when i came into this job, we had awareness of about 90 of the drug flow ultimately destined for the United States. It doesnt come here directly. It comes into countries like central america, honduras, el salvador, and guatemala. Coincidentally, those are the same countries of origin where unaccompanied minors were entering the United States. So Violent Crime, Drug Trafficking activity, but all of it targeted towards a demand in the United States, so theres a clear nexus between regional stability and Drug Trafficking but we have awareness of 90 of the flow. Before coming into this job, we were able to target about 10 about 10 . Now, some of this intelligence comes from confidential informants. Theyre not paid a lot of money from their host nations. It could be a fisherman, and he might be paid 300 to provide us veryw, if hes found out, hes going to be assassinated. Not only will he be assassinated, his family will be assassinated. And yet when we get that information, i just dont have enough ships. I dont have enough assets to act upon that information. Now, the good news is weve closed that gap by nearly 35 in the last year, which means were not doing Something Else somewhere else, and i cant tell you what that is but weve doubled down on the transit zone, and its making a huge difference today. Were up in the arctic and i dont think Alexander Hamilton envisioned the arctic. Last week we had protesters in portland, oregon, as one of shells ships was departing. We had repellers jump off a bridge and we actually held the ship up to strike a balance of you really cant be protesting here, but eventually that ship is making its way up to the arctic. Shell is actually drilling as i speak today. Not into formation but five years ago today i was down in the gulf of mexico where i spent seven months which were like dog months as a federal onscene coordinator of the deep deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Make no mistake, a major oil spill. We need to be mindful that shell is responsible in carrying out their responsibilities in the arctic. We will have five ships and we already have several helicopters operating up in the arctic. This last winter we saw the record low sea ice extent up in the arctic region, and as that ice starts to retreat we may see a record retreatment of sea ice as well. 2012 was a record year. 14 of the 15 warmest years in the arctic have all happened in the last 15 years. What i do know is that theres a lot more water than where there used to be ice, and not only that, but about 5 of this region, 5 is charted to what i would say modernday standards. I was in iceland a month and a half ago. I was on the icelandic coast guard vessel thor what a great name that is, thor. So i looked at their charts and the datum is from 1915. Thats when the most recent survey work is. So when the thor is operating up there, they send their boat up in front of them with a side scan sonar so they dont stumble against anything. This year we will have 200,000 tourists that will venture into the arctic. Many of the cruise ships go flying by at 20, 25 knots through the same waters that thor, very used to operating in this area and the reason i say that, when i met the captain a little crusty. I said how many years of sea duty do you have . 58. More than magellan. And so he is uncertain about whats up there, but what happens if one of those cruise ships were to find a pinnacle in 39 degree water temperature . We knew what happened with titanic 103 years ago. We know because were still flying the International Ice patrol to the warn mariners of any icebergs that drift into the shipping lanes, but fufif you have a mass loss of life up in the arctic, the coast guard will be pressed in service. Were in a very active campaign, i am during my term as commandant, as we look at recapitalizing the coast guard. When you look at an icebreaker its a national asset. Its not just a coast guard asset, and it serves multiple stakeholders interests not just coast guard, National Science foundation, department of defense, department of interior the list goes on and on, but its not like passing the hat or passing the plate at church and say, okay everyone donate, well give our tithes and offerings and well have an icebreaker. Theres violent agreement this is a national requirement. We just have to come up with a way to fund this. The next big acquisition for the coast guard is going to be the offshore patrol cutter. I took a Ranking Member from the senate down to visit one of our ships, and when he went on there, it was a 210foot cutter. Its 50 years old. Were now on the nearly fourth generation of coasties that have now served on this very same ship. It doesnt have dedicated ballast, which means as it burns fuel, it rocks around a little bit, so were having lunch and this member said its probably a good time to go out and look at the horizon. And so were only on the ship for 90 minutes and hes already uncomfortable, but were sending our crews out there for months on end to serve on this very same ship. Then i said, let me just show you the engine room real quick. We go down there and we look at the two main diesel engines that were dropped in there back in 1964. And the engineer of the watch says, senator, welcome to the one platform in our inventory in the United States that is impregnable against a cyber attack because theres not one digital system on this ship. So, yes, we do need to recapitalize these assets and thats why the offshore patrol cutter, as many may have heard me say, is our number one priority going forward. But when you look at cyber i was over where raito works and i was over there yesterday to wish him a happy birthday but in one of those vaults there was a very sponsored cyber track that took place. It was a spear phishing attack. I cant say a whole lot more about that, but its had a Significant Impact on a federal agency in u. S. Government, and im not talking about the opm hack. This is highly classified but it was our cyber watch standers that were able to kill that spear phishing attempt before it even reached our recipients. Had those recipients opened it we would have had to take them off the net and its no coincidence that many of the targeted recipients were very Senior Officers in the coast guard. Fortunately, they cant spell zukunft, so they couldnt get my email. I said theres some advantage to having a name you cant spell or pronounce. But were very active in the cyber dough nanmain as well. I released a Cyber Strategy and we pushed it out last fall and industry is now coming to us. We regulate the maritime industry and post9 11 probably one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation was the Maritime Transportation security act of 2002, and it required vessels and it required our maritime facilities recognizing that 90 of our global trade moves by sea, that they needed to implement safeguards, physical security at their facilities, so theyve done a great job of that. I happened to be down at an lng facility being built out in louisiana. Wount i wont give that you name because it would be an insider trade secret but this facility when its fully up and running will move more liquified gas than there are gas carriers in the world to move that product. What a great time to do this at this point the United States sits on the largest reserves of lng as well and the panama canal expansion project when i was in there last november by all indications will open up probably on or about the 1 bsst of april of 2016. Its 180 feet wide but initially it will take ships up to 160 feet wide. It means lng carriers from the United States can supply the asiapacific market with lng and do so in a timely fashion, which is good. When i talk to the facility operator, and you know youre in southern louisiana when the road kill shifts to alligators. And they have the fences, they have the cameras, they have the physical security, and i said well, what are you doing about zeros and ones . Zeros and ones. Im not following. I said what are you doing about the invisible attack . He said who would want to attack us . I said youre supplying the asiapacific market. Theres another pure competitor and its called russi