1225 
are speaking directly to the point of the barge and towing industry’s interest 
in the transportation support services rendered by the Coast Guard, these 
services are rendered with respect to all domestic waterborne commerce. 
AWO believes that the nation’s domestic marine transportation services will 
be best served by leaving the United States Coast Guard in the Department 
of Transportation where the total mission of the department is directed toward 
improvement of the transport network as a whole, using the facilities of other 
agencies within the Department in addition to the Coast Guard. Transfer of 
the ‘Coast Guard to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency inevitably 
would reduce the Coast Guard’s services in the transportation field in rela- 
tionship to the other interests it would have in the new agency. Where the 
priorities of the Coast Guard’s work are now directed primarily to transporta- 
tion services, this would not be the case in the Coast Guard’s role within the 
new Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. The priorities would change so as to 
inevitably downgrade Coast Guard work in the field of transportation. For 
this reason, The American Waterways Operators, Inc. urges against the proposed 
transfer. 
The downgrading of the Coast Guard’s priority for services to marine trans- 
portation would affect certain functions which we believe should be called 
forcefully to the attention of this subcommittee in this consideration of the 
proposed transfer. 
Great public concern has been expressed, and rightly so, with respect to the 
transportation of certain hazardous and dangerous cargoes, primarily liquid 
cargoes which are flammable, combustible, explosive, toxic and/or poisonous. 
Many millions of tons of such commodities are moved in bulk in barges over 
the inland waterways and over the coastal waterways of the United States. 
Similarly such cargoes are moved by rail and by truck. The Coast Guard 
formulates and administers rules and regulations governing such transporta- 
tion by tank barge and tank ship. These rules and regulations govern the 
specifications for the construction and operation inspection of such tank vessels. 
In certain instances they govern operational procedures. They govern the re- 
quirement for licensed personnel to handle the loading and and unloading of 
such commodities. 
It should be of interest to this committee to note that the marine transport 
industry, including the barge and towing industry, is the only mode of trans- 
portation that today has a well-developed and functioning system of safety 
control for the transportation of flammable, combustible, explosive, toxic and/or 
poisonous commodities. The reason for this is that the Coast Guard and the 
marine transport industry, working closely in cooperation with each other, 
recognized many years ago that a system of safety control was essential. And 
the Coast Guard working in cooperation with the inadustry developed an accept- 
able system which has worked extremely well. Anything which would tend to 
diminish or dilute the Coast Guard’s primary mission of transport services 
would inevitably be reflected in diminished work, interest, expertise, and knowl- 
edge in this most important safety activity, an activity which is not only of im- 
portance to the marine transport industry itself but to the general public welfare. 
The Coast Guard is responsible for formulating and administering Rules of 
the Road which govern the operation of marine vessels. These Rules of the 
Road not only govern the physical handling of vessels, but establish procedures 
for the lighting of vessels for recognition purposes during the periods when such 
vessels are in motion, when tied up, or at anchor. These rules govern moorings 
and anchorings to insure the safety of persons and property, both with respect 
to the moored and/or anchored vessels as well as other vessels that will be 
navigating in the vicinity. 
The Coast Guard is responsible for placing and maintaining aids to naviga- 
tion in order to insure safe operation of vessels. The agency at this time maintains 
over 44,600 such aids to navigation, approximately 24,000 of which are buoy 
markers on the inland waterways of the United States which serve as aids 
to both commercial vessels and pleasure craft. These inland channel buoys 
together with lighthouses, off-shore platform stations, lighted ships, radio- 
beacons, fog signals, day beacons, and long-range electronic aids are all primarily 
transportation services performed by the Coast Guard. 
The Coast Guard’s ice breaking responsibilities on such inland waterways 
as the Hudson River, the Upper Mississippi River, the Missouri River, Chesapeake 
Bay, the Potomac River. the TWlinois Waterway, and in certain other areas 
are all essential transport service functions. 
