Strategic Sealift Management Of The Ready Reserve Force PDF Download

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Defense Reserve Fleet's (NDRF) viability and the Maritime Administration's (MARAD) management of the fleet, focusing on: (1) the Reserve Fleet's changing character; (2) its contribution in deploying and sustaining U.S. troops during the Persian Gulf crisis; (3) the revenue implications of the domestic and foreign scrapping of Reserve Fleet ships; and (4) MARAD maintenance and management of the fleet's older, less ready vessels. GAO found: (1) during the 1980s, the Department of Defense spent over $7 billion to improve, increase, and expand government-owned or -controlled sealift assets; (2) during deployment to the Persian Gulf, Non-Ready Reserve Force (non-RRF) ships were not used to assist in the transportation of the 10 million tons of cargo because there would not be enough time to activate the ships, the ships' relatively small size, slow transit speeds, long off-loading times compared with other ships, and the ready availability of U.S. and foreign flag commercial ships; (3) legislation has been introduced that would require that all Reserve Fleet ships built prior to 1946 be scrapped domestically; however, under present scrap market conditions, domestic ship scrappers have bid much less than foreign firms because of various economic, environmental, and safety factors that result in higher costs to U.S. firms; and (4) MARAD cannot ensure that non-RRF ships can be relied on as viable sealift assets because of ineffective dehumidification systems, inadequately controlled spare parts, doubtful availability of sufficient crews, unavailable ship condition documentation, and lack of written criteria and procedures for ship disposal.