Homeland Security
Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease Gao ID: GAO-06-644 May 19, 2006U.S. agriculture generates over $1 trillion in annual economic activity, but concerns exist about the sector's vulnerability to a natural or deliberate introduction of foreign livestock, poultry, and crop pests and disease. Under the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection (AQI) program, international passengers and cargo are inspected at U.S. ports of entry to seize prohibited material and intercept foreign agricultural pests. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred AQI inspections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and left certain other AQI responsibilities at USDA. GAO examined (1) the extent to which USDA and DHS have changed the inspection program since the transfer, (2) how the agencies have managed and coordinated their responsibilities, and (3) how funding for agricultural inspections has been managed since the transfer.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal agencies' roles and responsibilities were modified to help protect agriculture. In March 2003, more than 1,800 agriculture specialists within USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) became DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees, while USDA retained responsibility for AQI activities such as setting inspection policy, providing training, and collecting user fees. Since the transfer, the agencies have expanded training on agriculture issues for CBP officers and agriculture specialists. CBP and APHIS also have taken steps to enable agriculture specialists to better target shipments and passengers for inspections and established a process to assess how CBP agriculture specialists are implementing AQI policy. Finally, CBP created a new agriculture liaison position in each of its district field offices to advise regional directors on agricultural issues. While these are positive steps, the agencies face management and coordination problems that increase the vulnerability of U.S. agriculture to foreign pests and disease. CBP has not developed sufficient performance measures that take into account the agency's expanded mission or consider all pathways by which prohibited agricultural items or foreign pests may enter the country. Specifically, although CBP's measures focus on two pathways that pose a risk to U.S. agriculture, they do not consider other key pathways such as commercial aircraft, vessels, and truck cargo. Also, although CBP has hired more than 630 specialists since the transfer, it has not yet developed or used a risk-based staffing model to ensure that adequate numbers of agriculture specialists are staffed to areas of greatest vulnerability. CBP also has not used available inspection and interception data to evaluate the performance of the AQI program. CBP and APHIS also continue to experience difficulty in sharing information such as key policy changes and urgent inspection alerts, and CBP has allowed the number and proficiency of agriculture canine units to decline. Although APHIS is legally authorized (though not required) to charge AQI user fees to cover program costs, we found that the agencies have not taken the necessary steps to ensure that user fees cover AQI costs. Consequently, the agencies had to use other authorized funding sources to pay for the program. Also, because of weaknesses in the design of CBP's new financial management system, CBP was unable to provide APHIS with information on the actual costs of the AQI program by user-fee type--for example, fees paid by international air passengers. APHIS uses this information to set future user-fee rates. Finally, in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, APHIS did not transfer AQI funds to CBP as agreed to by both agencies, causing some ports of entry to reduce spending on inspection activities in fiscal year 2005.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-06-644, Homeland Security: Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
May 2006:
Homeland Security:
Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability of U.S.
Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease:
GAO-06-644:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-644, a report to congressional requesters.
Why GAO Did This Study:
U.S. agriculture generates over $1 trillion in annual economic
activity, but concerns exist about the sector‘s vulnerability to a
natural or deliberate introduction of foreign livestock, poultry, and
crop pests and disease. Under the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection
(AQI) program, international passengers and cargo are inspected at U.S.
ports of entry to seize prohibited material and intercept foreign
agricultural pests. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred AQI
inspections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and left certain other AQI
responsibilities at USDA. GAO examined (1) the extent to which USDA and
DHS have changed the inspection program since the transfer, (2) how the
agencies have managed and coordinated their responsibilities, and (3)
how funding for agricultural inspections has been managed since the
transfer.
What GAO Found:
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal agencies‘
roles and responsibilities were modified to help protect agriculture.
In March 2003, more than 1,800 agriculture specialists within USDA‘s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) became DHS Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) employees, while USDA retained
responsibility for AQI activities such as setting inspection policy,
providing training, and collecting user fees. Since the transfer, the
agencies have expanded training on agriculture issues for CBP officers
and agriculture specialists. CBP and APHIS also have taken steps to
enable agriculture specialists to better target shipments and
passengers for inspections and established a process to assess how CBP
agriculture specialists are implementing AQI policy. Finally, CBP
created a new agriculture liaison position in each of its district
field offices to advise regional directors on agricultural issues.
While these are positive steps, the agencies face management and
coordination problems that increase the vulnerability of U.S.
agriculture to foreign pests and disease. CBP has not developed
sufficient performance measures that take into account the agency‘s
expanded mission or consider all pathways by which prohibited
agricultural items or foreign pests may enter the country.
Specifically, although CBP‘s measures focus on two pathways that pose a
risk to U.S. agriculture, they do not consider other key pathways such
as commercial aircraft, vessels, and truck cargo. Also, although CBP
has hired more than 630 specialists since the transfer, it has not yet
developed or used a risk-based staffing model to ensure that adequate
numbers of agriculture specialists are staffed to areas of greatest
vulnerability. CBP also has not used available inspection and
interception data to evaluate the performance of the AQI program. CBP
and APHIS also continue to experience difficulty in sharing information
such as key policy changes and urgent inspection alerts, and CBP has
allowed the number and proficiency of agriculture canine units to
decline.
Although APHIS is legally authorized (though not required) to charge
AQI user fees to cover program costs, we found that the agencies have
not taken the necessary steps to ensure that user fees cover AQI costs.
Consequently, the agencies had to use other authorized funding sources
to pay for the program. Also, because of weaknesses in the design of
CBP‘s new financial management system, CBP was unable to provide APHIS
with information on the actual costs of the AQI program by user-fee
type”for example, fees paid by international air passengers. APHIS uses
this information to set future user-fee rates. Finally, in fiscal years
2004 and 2005, APHIS did not transfer AQI funds to CBP as agreed to by
both agencies, causing some ports of entry to reduce spending on
inspection activities in fiscal year 2005.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends, among other things, that DHS identify and assess the
major risks posed by foreign pests and disease and develop and
implement a national staffing model to ensure that staff levels are
sufficient to meet those risks and that DHS and USDA analyze the full
cost of performing AQI inspections and ensure that user fees cover the
program‘s costs. USDA and DHS generally agreed with the report‘s
recommendations.
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-644].
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Daniel Bertoni at (202)
512-3841 or bertonid@gao.gov.
[End of Section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
CBP and APHIS Have Taken Steps to Strengthen the Agriculture Quarantine
Inspection Program:
Management and Coordination Problems May Leave U.S. Agriculture
Vulnerable to Foreign Pests and Disease:
Financial Management Issues at CBP and APHIS Adversely Affect the AQI
Program:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Results of GAO Survey of CBP Agricultural Specialists:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
GAO Comments:
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
GAO Comments:
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Average Inspection Rates before and after the Transfer from
APHIS to CBP:
Table 2: Average Interception Rates before and after the Transfer from
APHIS to CBP:
Table 3: AQI User-Fee Collections and Program Costs, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005:
Table 4: AQI User-Fee Funds Transferred from APHIS to CBP during Fiscal
Years 2004 and 2005:
Figures:
Figure 1: CBP Activity at U.S. Ports of Entry, 2005:
Figure 2: Example of Primary and Secondary Inspection Procedures at
Airport:
Figure 3: Collection and Transfer of User Fees from APHIS to CBP for
Fiscal Year 2006:
Abbreviations:
APHIS: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service:
AQI: Agricultural Quarantine Inspection:
AQIM: Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Monitoring:
ATS: Automated Targeting System:
CBP: Customs and Border Protection:
DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
FACT Act: Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990:
FLETC: Federal Law Enforcement Training Center:
FSIS: Food Safety and Inspection Service:
SITC: Smuggling Interdiction and Trade Compliance:
TECS: Treasury Enforcement Communications System:
USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture:
WADS: Work Accomplishment Data System:
Letter:
May 19, 2006:
The Honorable Robert F. Bennett:
Chairman:
The Honorable Herb Kohl:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Henry Bonilla:
Chairman:
The Honorable Rosa DeLauro:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Tom Harkin:
Ranking Democratic Member:
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry:
United States Senate:
Agriculture--the largest industry and employer in the United States,
generating more than $1 trillion in economic activity annually--is
threatened by the entry of foreign pests and disease that can harm the
economy, the environment, plant and animal health, and public health.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that these
biological invaders cost the American economy tens of billions of
dollars annually in lower crop values, eradication programs, and
emergency payments to farmers. As we reported in 2005, the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001, have heightened concerns about
agriculture's vulnerability to terrorism, including the deliberate
introduction of livestock, poultry, and crop diseases.[Footnote 1] To
safeguard U.S. agriculture from the catastrophic economic losses that
would likely result from accidental or deliberate introduction of a
foreign pest or disease such as avian influenza or foot-and-mouth
disease, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agriculture specialists
work at ports of entry to inspect passengers, baggage, cargo, and mail
entering the country in airplanes, ships, trucks, and railcars for
prohibited agricultural materials that may serve as carriers of these
pests and disease.
Since the early 1900s, USDA was responsible under its Agricultural
Quarantine Inspection (AQI) program for inspecting agricultural
products entering the country. Following the events of September 11,
2001, the Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002,
transferring USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
port inspection activities and those of other federal inspection
agencies responsible for monitoring the entry of passengers and cargo
into the United States--the Department of the Treasury's U.S. Customs
Service and the Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization
Service--to the newly created Department of Homeland Security Customs
and Border Protection (CBP).[Footnote 2]
Beginning in March 2003, more than 1,800 frontline agriculture
specialists[Footnote 3] who had formerly reported to APHIS became CBP
employees, as CBP incorporated the protection of U.S. agriculture into
its primary antiterrorism mission.[Footnote 4] Unlike the other former
federal inspection agencies, which were moved to DHS in their entirety,
APHIS continues to exist within USDA and retains responsibility for
domestic animal and plant programs and several AQI program activities,
such as setting inspection policy, providing training, and collecting
AQI user fees.
Responding to concerns that the transfer of agricultural inspections
from APHIS to CBP could shift the focus away from agriculture to other
DHS priorities, the conference report accompanying the Consolidated
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 requested that we report on
coordination between USDA and DHS to ensure that U.S. agriculture is
protected from accidentally or intentionally introduced pests and
disease.[Footnote 5] We also received a request from the Ranking Member
of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee to
evaluate AQI inspection issues. As agreed with your offices, we are
presenting our responses to both requests in this report.
This report assesses (1) the extent to which USDA and DHS have changed
the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program since the transfer of
responsibilities from USDA to DHS, (2) how the departments have managed
and coordinated their responsibilities, and (3) how funding for
agricultural inspections has been managed since the transfer from USDA
to DHS.
To address these objectives, we surveyed a nationally representative
sample of agriculture specialists about their work experiences since
the transfer; analyzed APHIS's inspection and interception data for
fiscal years 2000 through 2005; visited agriculture training facilities
in Florida, Georgia, and Maryland; and reviewed interagency agreements
related to the AQI program and other documentation, such as staffing
information, training materials, budget information, and financial
systems that CBP uses to track AQI-related costs. We also interviewed
key program officials at APHIS and CBP headquarters and field offices.
We performed a reliability assessment of the data we analyzed and
determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of
this report. More details on our scope and methodology appear in
appendix I. We conducted our review from April 2005 through March 2006
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
Since the transfer of AQI responsibilities from APHIS to CBP, the two
agencies have taken several steps to strengthen the agricultural
quarantine inspection program and integrate agriculture issues into
CBP's passenger and cargo inspection programs. First, CBP has
undertaken several training initiatives for CBP officers, whose primary
duty is customs and immigration inspection. Newly hired officers are
trained in agricultural issues at the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center and at their respective ports of entry. The training provides
them with basic agriculture knowledge to help them determine when to
refer passengers and cargo to CBP agriculture specialists for in-depth
inspections. Second, CBP agriculture specialists now have access to
CBP's classified data systems, which enables them to better target for
inspection passengers and cargo posing the greatest risk of introducing
pests and disease into the United States. For example, agriculture
specialists now use CBP's Automated Targeting System to identify high-
risk shipments before they enter the United States. Third, in fiscal
year 2005, CBP and APHIS established a formal assessment process to
ensure that ports continue to carry out agricultural inspections in
accordance with APHIS's regulations, policies, and procedures. Finally,
to help ensure that agriculture issues are sufficiently addressed, CBP
recently established agriculture liaisons in each of its 20 district
field offices to provide input to operational decisions made by CBP
field office directors--who oversee ports of entry--and provide senior-
level leadership for agriculture specialists.
Despite efforts to improve the AQI program, key management and
coordination challenges exist that increase the vulnerability of U.S.
agriculture to foreign pests and disease. First, CBP has not adopted
sufficient performance measures for AQI. Instead, it carried over the
two performance measures that APHIS used before the transfer, which
neither take into account CBP's expanded mission nor consider other
important pathways--commercial aircraft, vessels, and truck cargo--
that may pose a risk to U.S. agriculture. Second, although APHIS
updated a staffing model shortly after the transfer with
recommendations for the number of agriculture specialists necessary to
staff the various ports, CBP did not use it, or any other model, when
determining where to assign the more than 600 agriculture specialists
hired since the transfer. As a result, CBP does not have reasonable
assurance that these specialists are staffed to areas of greatest
vulnerability. Although CBP officials told us the agency is planning to
develop its own staffing model, it has not yet done so. Third,
agriculture specialists routinely input data on inspection activities
and outcomes, but CBP has not used these data to evaluate the
performance of the AQI program. Our analysis of this data indicates
that performance varies significantly across different regions of the
United States. Fourth, despite an interagency agreement intended to
facilitate coordination and communication between CBP and APHIS,
agriculture specialists are not consistently receiving notifications of
changes to inspection policies and urgent inspection alerts, in large
part because of problems with dissemination of information down the CBP
chain of command. For example, on the basis of our survey results, we
estimate that only 21 percent of agriculture specialists always receive
urgent alerts in a timely manner. Finally, CBP has allowed the
agriculture canine program--a key tool for targeting passengers and
cargo for detailed inspections--to deteriorate. Currently, dozens more
agriculture canine units are vacant, and the proficiency scores of the
remaining canine units have declined, limiting the essential
contributions these dogs can make to preventing entry of prohibited
agricultural items.
Financial management issues at CBP and APHIS adversely affect the AQI
program's ability to perform border inspections. First, although the
law authorizes (but does not require) user fees to cover all costs of
the AQI program, in the 3 years since the transfer, user fees have not
been sufficient to cover program costs. Consequently, in fiscal years
2003 through 2005, the agencies had to use AQI fees collected in
previous fiscal years or other available appropriations to pay for the
program. CBP has stated that without increasing current user-fee rates,
AQI program costs will continue to exceed user-fee collections. APHIS
and CBP plan to address the funding issue, but they have only recently
begun to work together to reassess user-fee rates. Second, because of a
weakness in the design of CBP's new financial management system, CBP
was unable to provide APHIS with information on the actual costs of the
AQI program broken out by user-fee type--for example, fees paid by
international air passengers--for fiscal year 2005. As a result, APHIS
was not able to evaluate the extent to which individual user fees cover
program costs. CBP officials told us that, for fiscal year 2006, CBP is
working to correct this weakness. Finally, although APHIS agreed to
transfer funds to CBP on a regular basis during fiscal years 2004 and
2005, these transfers were often delayed and their amounts varied from
what was agreed to. This is partly due to APHIS making errors in
processing some transfers. As a result, some ports had to reduce
spending for needed supplies or delay hiring personnel in fiscal year
2005, according to CBP officials. In October 2005, the agencies signed
a revised agreement specifying the schedule and amounts to be
transferred, which, according to APHIS and CBP officials, will help
address some of these problems. However, of the three scheduled
payments APHIS has made so far this fiscal year, one was $20,000 less
than the agreed upon amount.
We are making several recommendations aimed at helping the agencies
ensure the effectiveness of agricultural quarantine inspection programs
and protect U.S. agriculture from accidental or deliberate introduction
of foreign pests and disease. For example, we recommend that the
Secretary of Homeland Security address financial management issues to
ensure financial accountability for AQI funds. We also recommend that
the Secretary of Agriculture ensure the timely and accurate transfer of
AQI user fees to DHS. Finally, we recommend that the Secretaries of
Homeland Security and Agriculture work together to revise AQI program
performance measures, develop a risk-based staffing model, improve
interagency communication to ensure that agriculture specialists
receive important information, strengthen the canine program, and
address user-fee issues that threaten the viability of the AQI program.
In commenting on a draft of this report, USDA and DHS generally agreed
with the report's recommendations and noted that various initiatives
are either planned or under way to address our recommendations. USDA's
comments and our response are contained in appendix III, and DHS's
comments and our response are contained in appendix IV. The departments
also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated into this
report, as appropriate.
Background:
Agricultural inspections at U.S. ports of entry had been the
responsibility of USDA since 1913. Following the events of September
11, 2001, the Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which
combined the inspection activities of the Department of the Treasury's
Customs Service, the Department of Justice's Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and APHIS into the newly created DHS Customs
and Border Protection (CBP). Among other things, the act (1)
transferred, to the Department of Homeland Security, APHIS's
responsibility for inspecting passenger declarations and cargo
manifests, international air passengers, baggage, cargo, and
conveyances and holding suspect articles in quarantine to prevent the
introduction of plant or animal diseases; and (2) authorized USDA to
transfer up to 3,200 agricultural quarantine inspection (AQI) personnel
to DHS.
The Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) signed a memorandum of
agreement in February 2003, agreeing to work cooperatively to implement
the relevant provisions of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and to
ensure necessary support for and coordination of the AQI program
functions.[Footnote 6] The agreement detailed how the AQI program was
to be divided, with some functions transferred to DHS and others
retained by USDA. Agricultural import and entry inspection functions
transferred to DHS included (1) reviewing passenger declarations and
cargo manifests and targeting for inspection high-risk agricultural
passenger/cargo shipments; (2) inspecting international passengers,
luggage, cargo, mail, and means of conveyance; and (3) holding suspect
cargo and articles for evaluation of plant and animal health risk in
accordance with USDA regulations, policies, and guidelines. Functions
remaining in USDA included (1) providing risk-analysis guidance,
including in consultation with DHS, and the setting of inspection
protocols; (2) applying remedial measures other than destruction and re-
exportation, such as fumigation, to commodities, conveyances, and
passengers; and (3) providing pest identification services at plant
inspection stations and other facilities. The parties agreed to
cooperate in the financial management functions, including development
of annual plans and budgets, AQI user fees, and funds control and
financial reporting procedures.
To carry out its new inspection responsibilities, CBP established a
"One Face at the Border" initiative, which unified the customs,
immigration, and agricultural inspection processes by cross-training
CBP officers and agriculture specialists to (1) prevent terrorists,
terrorist weapons, and contraband from entering the United States; (2)
identify people seeking to enter the United States illegally and deny
them entry; and (3) protect U.S. agricultural and economic interests
from harmful pests and diseases.
Unlike the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, which were moved to DHS in their entirety, APHIS continues to
exist within USDA and retains responsibility for conducting veterinary
inspections of live imported animals; establishing policy for
inspections and quarantines; providing risk analysis; developing and
supervising training on agriculture for CBP agriculture specialists;
conducting specialized inspections of plant or pest material;
identifying agricultural pests; and collecting AQI user fees. CBP and
APHIS agreed to support their respective AQI duties by sharing funds
from USDA-collected AQI user fees levied on international air
passengers, commercial aircraft, ships, trucks, and railroad cars.
CBP agriculture specialists are assigned to 161 of the 317 ports of
entry that CBP staffs.[Footnote 7] As shown in figure 1, these ports
collectively handle thousands of sea containers and aircraft and over a
million passengers each day.
Figure 1: CBP Activity at U.S. Ports of Entry, 2005:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Each port of entry can comprise one or more facilities--airports,
seaports, or land border crossings--where CBP officers and agriculture
specialists process arriving passengers and cargo. For example, the
port of Buffalo, New York, has an airport and land border inspection
facilities, whereas the Port of Atlanta has only the Atlanta
Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport. Individual port directors are
responsible for overseeing port operations and assigning agriculture
specialists to specific port facilities. The ports are organized into
20 district field offices, each with a director of field operations who
is responsible for the operation of multiple ports in a given
geographic area and serves as a liaison between CBP headquarters and
port management.
Day-to-day operations for agriculture specialists may include
inspecting pedestrians, passengers, cargo, and vehicles for pests and
contraband. Such inspections generally follow a two-stage process--
primary and secondary inspections. Figure 2 shows the passenger
inspection process at an international airport, as an example.
Figure 2: Example of Primary and Secondary Inspection Procedures at
Airport:
[See PDF for image]
[A] After material has been seized, the agriculture specialist either
sends an unknown detected pest to the APHIS pest identifiers or the
material is sent to the incinerator to be destroyed.
[End of figure]
A primary inspection could include questioning passengers about their
origin and destination, reviewing their written declarations, and
screening their baggage with detector dogs to determine whether to
refer the passengers for a secondary inspection. A secondary inspection
involves a more detailed questioning of the passenger and an
examination of their baggage by X-ray and, if necessary, by hand
search. Procedures for inspecting commercial shipments vary according
to factors such as the type of agricultural product, risk level
associated with the product, and country of origin. To reduce the risk
of foreign pests and disease entering the United States, agriculture
specialists review cargo documents to select shipments for more
detailed physical inspection.
The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, as amended
(FACT Act), authorizes APHIS to set and collect user fees for AQI
services provided in connection with the arrival of international air
passengers and conveyances (e.g., commercial aircraft and trucks) at a
port in the customs territory of the United States.[Footnote 8] The six
AQI user fees are assessed on international air passengers, commercial
aircraft, commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial truck
decals, and commercial railroad cars.[Footnote 9] These user fees are
paid directly by shipping companies or indirectly by air passengers
through taxes on tickets. The international passenger and commercial
aircraft fees are calculated and remitted quarterly by the individual
airline companies to USDA, while rail car fees are remitted monthly.
CBP collects the commercial vessel, truck, and truck decal fees at the
time of inspection. International air passengers and commercial
conveyances entering the United States from Canada are exempt from the
user fees. The FACT Act authorizes user fees for (1) providing AQI
services for the conveyances, cargo, and passengers listed above; (2)
providing preclearance or preinspection at a site outside the customs
territory of the United States to international airline passengers,
commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial railroad cars, and
commercial aircraft; and (3) administering the AQI user-fee programs.
AQI user fees have been revised several times since the FACT Act was
passed in 1990. In November, 1999, APHIS published a final rule in the
Federal Register that amended the user-fee regulations by adjusting the
fees charged for certain AQI services for part of fiscal year 2000 and
for fiscal years 2001 and 2002.[Footnote 10] The user-fee adjustments
were intended to ensure that APHIS covered the anticipated actual cost
of providing AQI services. Subsequent rule making, culminating in a
final rule published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2003,
extended the adjusted fees indefinitely, beyond fiscal year 2002, until
the fees are revised again.[Footnote 11] On December 9, 2004, APHIS
published an interim rule to raise user fees, effective January 1,
2005.[Footnote 12]
CBP and APHIS Have Taken Steps to Strengthen the Agricultural
Quarantine Inspection Program:
Since the transfer of agricultural quarantine inspections to CBP, the
agency has increased training in agricultural issues for CBP officers
and developed a national standard for in-port training. In addition,
CBP and APHIS have enhanced the ability of agriculture specialists to
better target inspections at the ports. The two agencies also
established a joint program to review the agricultural inspections
program on a port-by-port basis, and CBP created new agricultural
liaison positions at the field office level to advise regional port
directors on agricultural issues.
CBP and APHIS Have Expanded Training on Agriculture Issues:
CBP has undertaken several training initiatives for CBP officers, whose
primary duty is customs and immigration inspection. Under CBP, newly
hired CBP officers receive 16 hours of training on agricultural issues
at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco,
Georgia. Under APHIS, agriculture courses for Customs and Immigrations
officers had been limited to 4 hours and 2 hours, respectively, of
classroom overviews on agriculture issues. The revamped training
provides the newly hired CBP officers with basic agriculture
information so they know when to either prohibit entry or refer
potential agricultural threats to CBP agriculture specialists. In
addition to a more comprehensive course, the curriculum provides for
additional testing on AQI knowledge. For example, classroom simulations
include agricultural items, and CBP officers' written proficiency tests
now include questions on agricultural inspections.
In addition, CBP and APHIS have undertaken an initiative to expand
agriculture training for all CBP officers at their respective ports of
entry. The purpose of these modules--designed for Customs and
Immigration officers--was to provide officers with the ability to make
informed decisions on agricultural items at high-volume border traffic
areas or to facilitate the clearance of travelers and cargo at ports
without agriculture specialists, such as some ports of entry along the
Canadian border. According to agency officials, the agencies have now
expanded training to 16 hours of lecture and 8 hours of on-the-job
training, including environment-specific modules for six inspection
environments: northern border, southern border, international mail/
expedited courier, maritime, airport processing, and preclearance
(i.e., inspections of passengers and cargo prior to arrival in the
United States).
Additionally, CBP and APHIS have formalized the in-port training
program and have developed a national standard for agriculture
specialists. Under APHIS, depending on the port to which they were
assigned, newly hired agriculture specialists spent anywhere from 1
week to 1 year shadowing senior agriculture specialists. After the
transfer, CBP formalized this process to ensure all agriculture
specialists were receiving the necessary on-the-job training. This
formalized process includes a checklist of activities for agriculture
specialists to master and is structured in two modules: an 8-week
module on passenger inspection procedures and a 10-week module on cargo
inspection procedures.
Based on our survey of agriculture specialists, we estimate that 75
percent of specialists hired by CBP believe that they received
sufficient training (on the job and at the Professional Development
Center) to enable them to perform their agriculture inspection duties.
An estimated 13 percent of specialists believe that they probably or
definitely did not receive adequate training, and another 13 percent
either were uncertain or did not answer the question. (See app. II,
survey question 12.)
CBP and APHIS Have Taken Steps to Improve Targeting of Agricultural
Inspections:
CBP and APHIS have also taken steps to better identify and target
shipments and passengers that present potentially high risk to U.S.
agriculture. Under CBP, some agriculture specialists receive training
and access to computer applications such as CBP's Automated Targeting
System (ATS), which is a computer system that, among other things, is
meant to (1) identify high-risk inbound and outbound passengers and
cargo for terrorist links, smuggling of WMD, drugs, currency, and other
contraband; (2) focus limited inspection resources on higher-risk
passengers and cargo; (3) facilitate expedited clearance or entry for
low-risk passengers and cargo; and (4) enable users to create ad-hoc
queries to filter data to meet specific research needs.[Footnote 13]
ATS helps agriculture specialists select which cargo shipments to
inspect based on detailed information contained in the cargo manifests
and other documents that shipping companies are required to submit
before the ship arrives in a port. CBP and APHIS headquarters personnel
also use ATS data to identify companies that have violated U.S.
quarantine laws. For example, recently the two agencies used ATS to
help identify companies that have smuggled poultry products in seafood
containers from Asia, according to a senior APHIS official. The U.S.
currently bans uncooked poultry products from Asian countries because
of concerns over avian influenza.
CBP and APHIS are working together to further refine ATS's
effectiveness in identifying and targeting shipments of agricultural
products. Specifically, APHIS assigned a permanent liaison to the CBP
National Targeting Center in April 2005 to help develop a rule set (a
computerized set of criteria) that will automate the process of
identifying companies or individuals that pose a significant
agroterrorism risk to U.S. agriculture. According to the APHIS liaison,
the rule set will eventually be applicable to nonagroterrorism events,
such as smuggling and shipments that are not compliant with U.S.
quarantine regulations. CBP officials told us that the agency has set a
September 2006 release date for the first version of the rule set. CBP
officials also told us that the agency is testing an interim rule set
for high-risk commodities regulated by USDA's Food Safety Inspection
Service (FSIS) that they expect to release in July 2006.[Footnote 14]
In addition to ATS, agriculture specialists now also have access to the
Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS)--a computerized
information system for identifying individuals and businesses suspected
of violating federal law. TECS serves as a communications system
between Treasury law enforcement offices and other federal, state, and
local law enforcement agencies.
ATS and TECS complement other targeting tools already used by
agriculture specialists under APHIS. Specifically, agriculture
specialists continue to use CBP's Automated Commercial System to review
the manifests of incoming shipments. At select ports, agriculture
specialists also continue to use APHIS's Agricultural Quarantine
Inspection Monitoring (AQIM) system to estimate the amount of
quarantine items or pests entering the country. CBP agriculture
specialists submit AQIM data to APHIS, where it is used to estimate the
extent to which agricultural pests and diseases approach the United
States through various pathways (e.g., international air passengers).
CBP and APHIS Have Established a Review Process for Assessing Port
Compliance with Agricultural Inspection Policy:
In fiscal year 2005, CBP and APHIS established a formal assessment
process to ensure that ports of entry continue to carry out
agricultural inspections in accordance with APHIS's regulations,
policies, and procedures. According to an APHIS official, the new
formal assessment process is a means for APHIS to gather some of the
information necessary to formulate agricultural inspection policy. The
assessments, called Joint Agency Quality Assurance Reviews, entail a
visit to ports by APHIS and CBP officials, who complete a questionnaire
based on interviews with the port director and other CBP personnel and
through direct observation of port operations by the review team. The
reviews cover topics such as (1) coordination with other federal
agencies, (2) training for agriculture specialists, (3) access of
agriculture specialists to regulatory manuals, and (4) processes for
handling violations at the port, inspecting passenger baggage and
vehicles, and intercepting, seizing, and disposing of confiscated
materials.
The review teams report on best practices and deficiencies at each port
and make recommendations for corrective actions. For example, a review
of two ports found that they were both significantly understaffed, and
that CBP agriculture specialists at one of the ports were conducting
superficial inspections on commodities that should have been inspected
more intensely. At the same ports, the review identified best practices
in the placing of personnel from CBP, APHIS, and FDA in the same
facility and the targeting of tile imports from Italy and Turkey for
possible agroterrorism risks.[Footnote 15] As of February 2006, the
joint review team has conducted reviews of nine ports, and the agencies
plan to complete seven additional reviews in fiscal year 2006,
according to a senior APHIS official.
CBP Has Established New Agriculture Liaisons to Advise Regional
Directors:
In May 2005, CBP required that each director in its 20 field offices
identify and appoint an agriculture liaison, with background and
experience as an agriculture specialist, to provide CBP field office
directors with agriculture-related input for operational decisions and
provide agriculture specialists with senior-level leadership. CBP
officials told us that all district field offices had established the
liaison position as of January 2006. The CBP agriculture liaison duties
include, among other things, advising the director of the field office
on agricultural functions; providing oversight for data management,
statistical analysis, and risk management; and providing oversight and
coordination for agriculture inspection alerts.
Since the creation of the position, agriculture liaisons have begun to
facilitate the dissemination of urgent alerts from APHIS to CBP. For
example, following a large increase in the discovery of plant pests at
a port in November 2005, the designated agriculture liaison sent notice
to APHIS, which then issued alerts to other ports. Subsequent
communications between APHIS and CBP identified the agriculture liaison
at the initial port as a contact for providing technical advice for
inspecting and identifying this type of plant pest.
Management and Coordination Problems May Leave U.S. Agriculture
Vulnerable to Foreign Pests and Disease:
Several management and coordination problems exist that may leave U.S.
agriculture vulnerable to foreign pests and disease. CBP has not
developed sufficient performance measures to manage and evaluate the
AQI program. CBP also has not developed a staffing model to determine
how to allocate newly hired agriculture specialists or used available
data to evaluate the effectiveness of the AQI program. In addition,
information sharing and coordination between CBP and APHIS has been
problematic. Finally, the agriculture canine program has deteriorated.
CBP Lacks Adequate Performance Measures for Agricultural Quarantine
Inspections:
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires federal
agencies to develop and implement appropriate measures to assess
program performance.[Footnote 16] Yet, 3 years after the transfer, CBP
has yet to develop and implement its own performance measures for the
AQI program despite changes in the program's mission. Instead,
according to senior CBP officials, CBP carried over two measures that
APHIS used to assess the AQI program before the transfer: the
percentage of (1) international air passengers and (2) border vehicle
passengers that comply with AQI regulations. However, these measures
address only two pathways, neglecting commercial aircraft, vessel, and
truck cargo pathways. CBP's current performance measures also do not
provide information about changes in inspection and interception rates,
which could prove more useful in assessing the efficiency and
effectiveness of agriculture inspections in different regions of the
country or at individual ports of entry. They also do not address the
AQI program's expanded mission--to prevent agroterrorism while
facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel. CBP officials
told us that the agency recognizes that the current performance
measures are not satisfactory and is planning new performance measures
for the fiscal year 2007 performance cycle. However, such measures had
not yet been developed at the time of our review.
CBP Made Progress Hiring Agriculture Specialists but Still Lacks a Risk-
Based Staffing Model:
To accomplish the split in AQI responsibilities in March 2003, APHIS
transferred a total of 1,871 agriculture specialist positions,
including 317 vacancies, and distributed these positions across CBP's
20 district field offices.[Footnote 17] According to senior officials
involved with the transfer, APHIS's determinations were made under
tight time frames and required much guess work. As a result, from the
beginning, CBP lacked adequate numbers of agriculture specialists and
had little assurance that the appropriate numbers of specialists were
staffed at the ports of entry. Since then, CBP has hired more than 630
specialists, but the agency has not yet developed or used a risk-based
staffing model for determining where to assign its agriculture
specialists.
Our guidelines for internal control in the federal government state
that agencies should have adequate mechanisms in place to identify and
analyze risks and determine what actions should be taken to mitigate
them.[Footnote 18] One such risk involves the changing nature of
international travel and agricultural imports, including changes to the
(1) volume of passengers and cargo, (2) type of agricultural products,
(3) countries of origin, and (4) ports of entry where passengers and
cargo arrive in the United States. One action to mitigate risk is
development and implementation of a staffing model to help determine
appropriate staffing levels to address these changing operating
conditions.
APHIS developed a staffing model, prior to the transfer of AQI
functions to CBP, to calculate the number of agriculture specialists
necessary to staff the various ports according to work load. However,
according to APHIS officials, the model was no longer useful because it
had not considered the split of inspectors between the two agencies.
Although APHIS updated the model in June 2004 at CBP's request, CBP
still did not use this or any other staffing model when assigning the
newly hired specialists to the ports. According to CBP officials, the
agency did not use APHIS's model because it did not consider some key
variables, such as the use of overtime by staff.[Footnote 19] CBP
officials also told us the agency is planning to develop its own
staffing model, but they were unable to provide us with planned
milestones or a timeline for completion. Until such a risk-based model
is developed and implemented, CBP does not know if it has an
appropriate number of agriculture specialists at each port.
An area of potential vulnerability that should be considered in
staffing the ports relates to the experience level of agriculture
specialists at the ports. More than one-third of CBP agriculture
specialists were hired since the transfer--and most within the last
year. For example, San Francisco lost 19 specialists since 2003 but
gained only 14 new hires or transfers, leaving 24 vacancies as of the
end of fiscal year 2005. APHIS officials expressed concern about the
turnover of staff at some ports because many of the newly hired CBP
agriculture specialists "will need time to get up to speed and do not
possess the institutional knowledge related to agricultural issues that
the more seasoned specialists had." The official added that the
experience level of specialists is of particular concern at ports of
entry staffed by only 1 or 2 agriculture specialists.
CBP Has Not Used Key Data to Evaluate Effectiveness of AQI Program:
According to APHIS, data in its Work Accomplishment Data System (WADS)
can help program managers evaluate the performance of the AQI program
by indicating changes in a key measure--the frequency with which
prohibited agricultural materials and reportable pests are found
(intercepted) during inspection activities. CBP agriculture specialists
routinely record data in WADS for each port of entry, including monthly
counts of (1) arrivals of passengers and cargo to the United States via
airplane, ship, or vehicle; (2) agricultural inspections of arriving
passengers and cargo; and (3) inspection outcomes (i.e., seizures or
detections of prohibited (quarantined) agricultural materials and
reportable pests). However, CBP has not used this data to evaluate the
effectiveness of the AQI program. Our analysis of the data shows that
average inspection and interception rates have changed significantly in
some geographical regions of the United States, with rates increasing
in some regions and decreasing in others (see tables 1 and 2).
Table 1 compares average inspection rates--the number of passenger and
cargo inspections relative to the total number of arrivals in each CBP
district field office--for the 42 months before and 31 months after the
transfer. Average inspection rates declined significantly in five
district field offices (Baltimore, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, and
"Preclearance" in Canada, the Caribbean, and Ireland), whereas rates
increased significantly in seven other districts (Buffalo, El Paso,
Laredo, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa, and Tucson).
Table 1: Average Inspection Rates before and after the Transfer from
APHIS to CBP:
Percent;
Atlanta;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 9.7;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 8.8;
Difference [A]: -0.9;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Baltimore;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 18.2;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 10.0;
Difference [A]: -8.2;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Boston;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 30.9;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 13.0;
Difference [A]: -17.9;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Buffalo;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 0.1;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 0.5;
Difference [A]: 0.3;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Chicago;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 18.0;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 18.5;
Difference [A]: 0.5;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Detroit;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 3.1;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 2.9;
Difference [A]: -0.2;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
El Paso;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 2.9;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 4.4;
Difference [A]: 1.5;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Houston;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 13.2;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 12.1;
Difference [A]: -1.1;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Laredo;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.7;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 8.8;
Difference [A]: 1.1;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Los Angeles;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 12.5;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 10.4;
Difference [A]: -2.1;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Miami;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 35.8;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 23.1;
Difference [A]: -12.7;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
New Orleans;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 37.6;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 41.8;
Difference [A]: 4.3;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
New York;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 12.0;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 11.8;
Difference [A]: -0.2;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Preclearance[C];
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.8;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.4;
Difference [A]: -4.4;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Portland;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 13.0;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 12.6;
Difference [A]: -0.4;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
San Diego;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 12.6;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 16.3;
Difference [A]: 3.6;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
San Francisco;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 40.4;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 19.0;
Difference [A]: -21.4;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
San Juan;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 62.4;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 57.6;
Difference [A]: -4.8;
Statistical Significance [B]: No.
Seattle;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 2.3;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.1;
Difference [A]: 0.8;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Tampa;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 19.6;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 30.7;
Difference [A]: 11.1;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Tucson;
Average Inspection Rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 2.6;
Average Inspection rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 4.0;
Difference [A]: 1.4;
Statistical Significance [B]: Yes.
Source: GAO calculations of APHIS's Work Accomplishment Data System,
fiscal years 2000-2005.
[A] Because of rounding, values in the difference column may not equal
the difference between rounded inspection rates.
[B] Statistical significance for each field office was calculated at
the 99.75 percent confidence level so that the confidence level of all
21 statistical significance outcomes, collectively, is about 95
percent.
[C] Preclearance inspections were conducted at 14 locations in Canada,
the Caribbean, and Ireland. Individuals arriving in the U.S. from those
locations did not undergo another inspection upon arrival in the United
States. According to CBP, preclearance inspections were done only as a
pilot and not as an ongoing program within the agency.
[End of table]
Similarly, table 2 compares average interception rates--the number of
pest interceptions relative to the total number of passenger and cargo
inspections in each CBP district field office--for the two periods of
time. The average rate of interceptions decreased significantly at
ports in six district field offices--El Paso, New Orleans, New York,
San Juan, Tampa, and Tucson--while average interception rates have
increased significantly at ports in the Baltimore, Boston, Detroit,
Portland, and Seattle districts. Decreases in interception rates, in
particular, may indicate that some CBP districts are less effective at
preventing entry of prohibited materials since the transfer from APHIS
to CBP.
Table 2: Average Interception Rates before and after the Transfer from
APHIS to CBP:
Percent.
Atlanta;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 10.7;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 11.5;
Difference[A]: 0.8;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Baltimore;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.6;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 10.4;
Difference[A]: 2.8;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Boston;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 3.9;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 12.4;
Difference[A]: 8.5;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Buffalo;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 15.4;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 30.2;
Difference[A]: 14.8;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Chicago;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 6.8;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 5.6;
Difference[A]: -1.3;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Detroit;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.7;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 20.7;
Difference[A]: 13.0;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
El Paso;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 9.4;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 5.7;
Difference[A]: -3.7;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Houston;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.9;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 8.4;
Difference[A]: 0.4;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Laredo;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 4.4;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.9;
Difference[A]: -0.5;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Los Angeles;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 7.4;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 8.7;
Difference[A]: 1.3;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
Miami;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 5.3;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 5.8;
Difference[A]: 0.4;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
New Orleans;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 5.9;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.5;
Difference[A]: -2.4;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
New York;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 18.1;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 10.2;
Difference[A]: -7.9;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Preclearance[C];
Average interception rate before (October 1999- February 2003): 10.1;
Average interception rate after (March 2003- September 2005): 24.4;
Difference[A]: 14.2;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Portland;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 9.6;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 14.9;
Difference[A]: 5.3;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
San Diego;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 1.3;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 1.4;
Difference[A]: 0.2;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
San Francisco;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 10.5;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 10.6;
Difference[A]: 0.1;
Statistical significance[B]: No.
San Juan;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 6.1;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.5;
Difference[A]: -2.5;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Seattle;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 30.1;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 46.5;
Difference[A]: 16.4;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Tampa;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 8.3;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 3.0;
Difference[A]: -5.2;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Tucson;
Average interception rate before (October 1999-February 2003): 9.0;
Average interception rate after (March 2003-September 2005): 7.0;
Difference[A]: -2.0;
Statistical significance[B]: Yes.
Source: GAO calculations of APHIS's Work Accomplishment Data System,
fiscal years 2000-2005.
[A] Because of rounding, values in the difference column may not equal
the difference between rounded interception rates.
[B] Statistical significance for each field office was calculated at
the 99.75 percent confidence level so that the confidence level of all
21 statistical significance outcomes, collectively, is about 95
percent.
[C] Preclearance inspections were conducted at 14 locations in Canada,
the Caribbean, and Ireland. Individuals arriving in the United States
from those locations did not undergo another inspection upon arrival in
the United States. According to CBP, preclearance inspections were done
only as a pilot and not as an ongoing program within the agency.
[End of table]
Of particular note are three districts that have experienced a
significant increase in their rate of inspections and a significant
decrease in their interception rates since the transfer. Specifically,
since the transfer, ports in the Tampa, El Paso, and Tucson districts
appear to be more efficient at inspecting (e.g., inspecting a greater
proportion of arriving passengers or cargo) but less effective at
interceptions (e.g., intercepting fewer prohibited agricultural items
per inspection). Also of concern are three districts--San Juan, New
Orleans, and New York--that are inspecting at about the same rate, but
intercepting less, since the transfer.
When we showed the results of our analysis to senior CBP officials,
they were unable to provide an explanation for these changes or to
determine whether the current rates were appropriate relative to the
risks, staffing levels, and staffing expertise associated with
individual districts or ports of entry. These officials also noted that
CBP has had problems interpreting APHIS data reports because CBP lacks
staff with expertise in agriculture and APHIS's data systems in some
district offices. CBP is working on a plan to collect and analyze
agriculture-related data in the system it currently uses for customs
inspections, but the agency has yet to complete or implement the plan.
Information Sharing and Coordination between CBP and APHIS Have Been
Problematic:
CBP and APHIS have an interagency agreement for sharing changes to
APHIS's policy manuals and agriculture inspection alerts, which impact
CBP's agricultural mission. APHIS maintains several manuals on its Web
site that are periodically updated for agriculture specialists' use.
These manuals include directives about current inspection procedures as
well as policies about which agricultural items from a particular
country are currently permitted to enter the United States. When APHIS
updates a manual, the agency sends advance notice to CBP headquarters
personnel, but agriculture specialists in the ports frequently do not
receive these notices. Before the transfer of agriculture specialists
to CBP, APHIS e-mailed policy manual updates directly to specialists,
according to a senior APHIS official. However, since the transfer, CBP
has not developed a list of all agriculture specialists' e-mail
addresses. As a result, APHIS uses an "ad-hoc e-mail list" to notify
CBP agriculture specialists of policy manual updates. When an
agriculture specialist or supervisor sends an e-mail to the APHIS
official who maintains the contact list, that person's e-mail address
is then manually added to the list. The official also noted he has
added e-mail addresses sent in by former APHIS personnel who noticed
that they were no longer receiving manual update notifications, as they
had prior to the transfer to CBP. However, the official also stated
that his list is not an official mailing list and is not representative
of all of the ports.[Footnote 20] CBP also could not tell us if the
list was accurate or complete.
Several agriculture specialists we spoke with indicated that they (1)
frequently did not receive any notification from APHIS or CBP when
manuals were updated, (2) received updates sporadically, or (3) were
unsure whether they received all of the relevant updates. Moreover,
based on our survey of agriculture specialists, we estimate that 20
percent of agriculture specialists do not regularly receive notices
that the manuals have been updated. According to our survey, 50 percent
of agriculture specialists always have access to the online manuals.
However, according to specialists we spoke with, it is difficult to
keep up with changes to the manuals without being notified as to which
policies or procedures are updated by APHIS. One inspector expressed
dismay that specialists at the port to which he had recently
transferred were unaware of new regulations for conducting inspections
to safeguard against avian influenza. Agriculture specialists at a
different port told us that they continue to refer to the hard copies
of APHIS's manuals, which APHIS has not updated since it stopped
producing hard copies in 2003.
In addition, although CBP and APHIS have established a process to
transmit inspection alerts down the CBP chain of command to agriculture
specialists, many frontline specialists we surveyed or interviewed at
the ports were not always receiving relevant agriculture alerts in a
timely manner. They identified the time required for dissemination of
agriculture alerts down the CBP chain of command as an issue of
concern. Specifically, based on our survey, we estimate that only 21
percent of specialists always received these alerts in a timely manner.
The level of information sharing appears to be uneven between ports and
pathways at ports. For example, an agricultural specialist at one port
told us that he received information directly from APHIS on pest
movements and outbreaks. An agriculture supervisor at a second port
noted that information sharing had improved after port officials
established a plant pest risk committee comprising local officials from
APHIS, CBP, and other agencies. However, an agriculture specialist at a
third port we visited told us that specialists there did not receive
any information on pests from APHIS, while a second specialist at the
same port expressed concern that alerts on disease outbreaks such as
avian influenza arrive many days after the outbreaks are first
reported.
With regard to coordination between CBP and APHIS, we found that APHIS
officers responsible for tracing the pathways of prohibited
agricultural items into the United States have experienced difficulty
or delays in gaining access to some ports of entry. After the transfer,
APHIS and CBP agreed to restrict APHIS officials' access to ports of
entry to ensure clear separation of responsibilities between the two
agencies. Under the memorandum of agreement, CBP may grant or refuse
access to ports by APHIS personnel, but APHIS officials noted that the
difficulties and delays in getting information from the ports has made
some of APHIS's Smuggling Interdiction and Trade Compliance (SITC)
activities difficult, if not impossible. Per the agreement, APHIS
personnel--including SITC inspectors--are to make advance arrangements
with local CBP port directors for access to agriculture inspection
areas. CBP agreed to provide APHIS with a written response to any
request for access to ports of entry but did not specify a time frame
for this response.
Prior to the transfer, APHIS SITC inspectors regularly worked with
APHIS agriculture inspectors to (1) trace the movement of prohibited
agricultural items found in U.S. markets back to ports of entry
(traceback), (2) identify parties responsible for importing prohibited
items, and (3) determine which weaknesses in inspection procedures
allowed the items to enter the United States. Currently, SITC
inspectors are still responsible for tasks such as surveying local
markets for prohibited agricultural products and gathering information
to identify and intervene in the movement of smuggled agricultural
commodities that could potentially harm U.S. agriculture. According to
SITC officials, their ability to gather timely information at ports of
entry is extremely important to SITC's mission. They added that delays
in special operations or port visits following the discovery of
prohibited items make it much harder to trace the pathway of such items
into the United States.
Although SITC officials noted that their inspectors have received
access to some ports to perform their duties, they added that CBP has
delayed or denied access to SITC inspectors at other ports in both the
eastern and western United States. The SITC officials stated that there
have been incidents in which CBP did not respond to requests for access
until months after APHIS made them. For example, in 2005, SITC
requested permission to conduct two special operations at U.S.
international airports to help determine whether passengers or cargo
from certain countries posed a risk in importing or smuggling poultry
products that could be infected with avian influenza. In justifying the
operations, SITC wrote, "Many illegal and possibly smuggled avian
products have been seized" in several states surrounding the airports.
In one case, CBP took 3 months to approve the request; however, SITC
had already canceled the operation 2 months earlier because of CBP's
lack of response. CBP approved another special operation several months
after SITC's request, but later canceled it because SITC uniforms did
not match CBP specialists' uniforms, according to senior SITC
officials. They added that CBP's other reasons for delaying or
canceling joint operations and visits included (1) inadequate numbers
of CBP specialists to participate in operations, (2) scheduling
conflicts involving CBP port management, and (3) concerns about SITC
inspectors' lack of security clearances.
Agriculture Canine Program Has Deteriorated:
Agriculture canines are a key tool for targeting passengers and cargo
for inspection, but we found that the program has deteriorated since
the transfer. The number and proficiency of canine teams has decreased
substantially over the last several years. Specifically, APHIS had
approximately 140 canine teams nationwide at the time of the transfer,
but CBP currently has approximately 80 such teams, about 20 percent of
which are newly hired, according to agency officials. They added that,
although CBP has authorized the hiring of 15 more agriculture canine
teams, the positions remain vacant as of the end of 2005. According to
APHIS, CBP has not been able to fill available APHIS agriculture
specialist canine training classes. After consulting with CBP, APHIS
scheduled 7 agriculture canine specialist training classes in fiscal
year 2005 but canceled 2 because CBP did not provide students.
Similarly, in fiscal year 2006, APHIS scheduled 8 classes, but, as of
April, had to cancel 3 for lack of students to train. In 2005, 60
percent of the 43 agriculture canine teams tested failed the USDA
proficiency test, and APHIS officials told us proficiency has declined
since the transfer. These proficiency tests, administered by APHIS,
require the canine to respond correctly in a controlled, simulated work
environment and ensure that canines are working effectively to catch
potential prohibited agricultural material.
Potential reasons for the deterioration in proficiency scores include
CBP not following policy and procedures for the canine program and
changes in the program management structure. The policy manual for the
canine program states that canines should (1) receive about 4 hours of
training per week and (2) have minimal down time in order to maintain
their effectiveness. In general, canine specialists we interviewed
expressed concern that the proficiency of their canines was
deteriorating due to a lack of working time. That is, the dogs were
sidelined while the specialist was assigned to other duties.
Furthermore, based on results of our survey, we estimate that 46
percent of canine specialists were directed to perform duties outside
their primary canine duties several times a week or every day.
Additionally, an estimated 65 percent of canine specialists sometimes
or never had funding for training supplies. Another major change to the
canine program, following the transfer, was CBP's elimination of all
former APHIS canine management positions. In some cases, agriculture
canine teams now report to supervisory agriculture specialists, who may
not have any canine experience. Formerly, canine teams reported to both
the in-port management and regional canine program coordinators, who
were experienced canine managers. The program coordinators monitored
the canine teams' proficiency and ensured that teams maintained
acceptable performance levels. According to CBP, the agency is
considering developing a new management structure to improve the
effectiveness of its canine program. However, little progress has been
made to date.
Financial Management Issues at CBP and APHIS Adversely Affect the AQI
Program:
The law authorizes user fees to cover the costs of the AQI program.
However, in the 3 years since the transfer, user fees have not been
sufficient to cover AQI program costs.[Footnote 21] CBP believes that
unless the current user-fee rates are increased, the program will
continue to face annual shortfalls to the detriment of the AQI program.
In addition, CBP underwent a financial management system conversion for
fiscal year 2005 and was unable to provide APHIS with actual cost
information needed to evaluate the extent to which individual user fees
cover program costs. Furthermore, APHIS did not always make regular
transfers of funds to CBP as it had agreed to, causing CBP to use other
funding sources or to reduce spending.
User Fees Have Not Been Sufficient to Cover AQI Program Costs:
The Secretary of Agriculture has the discretion to prescribe user fees
to cover the costs of the AQI program, but program costs have exceeded
user-fee collections since the transfer of AQI inspection activities to
CBP. Following the events of September 11, 2001, a sharp drop in the
number of international airline passengers entering the United States
caused a drop in AQI revenue (approximately 80 percent of total AQI
user-fee collections come from fees on international airline
passengers). Despite the drop in revenue, APHIS had to increase AQI
inspection activities because of post-September 11 concerns about the
threat of bioterrorism. According to USDA, agriculture specialists
began inspecting a greater volume of cargo entering the United States
and a greater variety of types of cargo than they had in prior years.
Such operations are personnel-intensive and, therefore, costly.
Consequently, when the transfer occurred in fiscal year 2003, AQI
program costs exceeded revenues by almost $50 million. The shortfall
increased to almost $100 million in the first full fiscal year after
the transfer. Table 3 provides AQI user-fee collections and program
costs for fiscal years 2001 through 2005.
Table 3: AQI User-Fee Collections and Program Costs, Fiscal Years 2001
through 2005:
Dollars in thousands.
User-fee collections;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2001: $255,141;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2002: $208,688;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2003: $227,823;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2004: $256,104;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2005: $331,636.
Total program costs[A];
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2001: 222,707;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2002: 250,810;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2003: 279,150;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2004: 355,521;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2005: 357,403.
APHIS costs;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2001: 222,707;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2002: 250,810;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2003: 194,030;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2004: 133,000;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2005: 134,995.
CBP costs;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2001: [B];
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2002: [B];
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2003: 85,120[C];
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2004: 222,521;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2005: 222,408.
Total program costs in excess of user-fee collections;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2001: ($32,434);
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2002: $42,122;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2003: $51,327;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2004: $99,417;
Dollars in thousands: Fiscal year: 2005: $25,767.
Sources: APHIS and CBP.
Notes: Negative values shown in parentheses.
[A] Program costs as reported by the agencies.
[B] Not applicable because CBP did not incur program costs until March
1, 2003.
[C] CBP costs for fiscal year 2003 began on March 1, 2003, when AQI
inspections were transferred to CBP.
[End of table]
For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the 2 full fiscal years since the
transfer, total AQI costs exceeded user-fee collections by more than
$125 million. Consequently, in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, APHIS used
AQI user-fee collections from previous years, and CBP used another
available appropriation to cover AQI costs.[Footnote 22] In October
2004, APHIS's Associate Deputy Administrator of Plant Protection and
Quarantine wrote to the Executive Director of CBP's Office of Budget,
noting, "We are in dire need of generating increased revenue for the
AQI program; without an increase, the AQI account could run out of
money on or about July 19, 2005." The letter also discussed a three-
phase approach to ensuring fiscal solvency for the AQI program. The
first phase consisted of establishing increased interim user-fee rates
to cover costs of pay raises and inflation. The second phase involved
removing the exemption from paying AQI user fees granted to passengers,
cargo, and commercial vehicles at ports of entry along the U.S.--Canada
border. The third phase included identifying all current and future
needs of the AQI program, not just pay raises and inflation, to ensure
that user fees fully cover AQI program costs. APHIS estimated that it
would take up to 2 years to complete the entire Federal Register
process and make new phase-three fees effective.
On December 9, 2004, APHIS proceeded with the first phase by publishing
an interim rule to raise user fees, effective January 1, 2005, through
2010.[Footnote 23] However, because of the method APHIS used to
estimate AQI program costs, this phase-one increase in user-fee
revenues is not likely to be enough to cover program costs through
fiscal year 2010. Specifically, APHIS used estimated fiscal year 2004
program costs--$327 million--plus 1.5 percent of these costs for pay
raises and inflation (or about $4.9 million) to set the fiscal year
2005 user fees. However, APHIS's base calculation used CBP's estimated
share of fiscal year 2004 user-fee funds--totaling $194 million--but
not CBP's actual reported costs for fiscal year 2004--totaling $222.5
million. Thus, the difference between CBP's actual and estimated costs
of $28.5 million was not included in the base calculation, resulting in
less revenue for the program.[Footnote 24] CBP subsequently
acknowledged that APHIS's decision not to include CBP's actual fiscal
year 2004 costs in the user-fee increase "has put CBP in the position
where incoming APHIS user-fee revenues fall short of the expected cost
of operating the [AQI] program." CBP finance officials also told us
that because the costs of performing AQI activities was approximately
$222 million in each of the previous 2 years, it is unlikely that the
projected $211 million to be transferred to CBP for fiscal year 2006
will be sufficient to cover program costs for fiscal year 2006 and
beyond.
Despite the shortfall between user-fee collections and program costs,
APHIS has not completed the second or third phases of its proposal. As
of May 2006, the Secretary of Agriculture had not made a decision
whether to proceed with the proposal to lift the Canadian
exemption.[Footnote 25] CBP officials told us that unless the Canadian
exemption is lifted, the agency cannot hire the over 200 additional
agriculture specialists that it has determined are needed to perform
additional inspections on the northern border. APHIS officials told us
that because lifting the Canadian exemption will affect estimates of
future revenue used in calculating new user-fee rates, APHIS and CBP
have not begun the third phase of revising user fees, which APHIS
estimates will take approximately 2 years.
CBP Could Not Provide APHIS with the Actual Cost Information:
CBP is required by the interagency agreement to establish a process in
its financial management system to report expenditures by each AQI fee
type, such as those paid by international passengers and commercial
aircraft. APHIS uses this information to set user-fee rates and to
audit user-fee collections. Although CBP provided detailed cost
information by activity and user-fee type to APHIS for fiscal year
2004, CBP provided only estimated cost information for fiscal year 2005
because of a weakness in the design of the agency's new financial
management system. In November 2005, CBP conducted an internal review
and determined that its reported costs of almost $208 million did not
include about $15 million in additional salary costs for CBP
agriculture supervisors. CBP officials told us that these costs were
not included, in large part, because the agency adopted a new financial
management system in fiscal year 2005 that allowed agriculture
supervisors to record their time spent on AQI activities in a joint
account that combined customs, immigration, and agricultural quarantine
inspection activities. Thus, the costs related to only agricultural
activities could not be segregated.
A senior CBP finance official told us that CBP's Office of Finance
could have provided rough estimates of costs by activity to APHIS but
chose not to do so because they did not want to combine actual and
estimated costs in the same document. Instead, CBP provided estimates
of cost by user-fee type in January 2006. CBP did provide APHIS with
the required accounting of obligations incurred by program office
(e.g., Office of Training and Development, Applied Technology Division,
Office of Asset Management, and Office of Chief Counsel) and budget
codes (e.g., salary, overtime, and office supplies) for fiscal year
2005. However, a senior APHIS budget official told us that this cost
information was not helpful to APHIS for reviewing the user-fee rates
because they needed the breakdown of actual costs by user-fee type and
because APHIS could not determine if the costs were accurate. Until
CBP's financial management system can provide actual costs by activity
and AQI user-fee type, APHIS will not be able to accurately determine
the extent to which the user fees need to be revised. In addition,
without such information, APHIS does not know whether inspections of
international airline passengers and commercial aircraft, vessels,
trucks, and railroad cars are being funded by revenue from the
appropriate user fee.
APHIS Did Not Always Make Regular Transfers of AQI Funds to CBP:
Although many of the AQI functions were transferred to CBP when the
Department of Homeland Security was formed, APHIS continues to collect
most user fees and transfers a portion of the collections to CBP on a
periodic basis.[Footnote 26] For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, these
transfers were often delayed and their amounts were sometimes less than
expected, which adversely affected CBP agricultural inspection
activities. In February 2004, USDA and DHS agreed that APHIS would
transfer one-fourth of the annual amount of estimated user-fee
collections to CBP at the beginning of each quarter, or if the balance
in the account was not sufficient to transfer the full quarterly amount
in advance, APHIS could make monthly transfers. APHIS officials told
us, however, that the agency chose to transfer funds to CBP every other
month because the AQI account would not always have had sufficient
funds to make quarterly transfers, and monthly transfers would have
been administratively burdensome. Nevertheless, as table 4 shows, CBP
frequently did not receive the transfers at the time specified or for
the agreed upon amount in fiscal years 2004 and 2005. Consequently,
according to CBP officials, the agency's finance office had to use
funding sources that they had planned to use for other purposes. In
addition, CBP officials told us some ports had to reduce spending for
supplies needed for inspection activities or delay hiring personnel or
purchasing equipment. Then, for the last transfer of the fiscal year,
APHIS did not notify CBP until August 2005 that the transfer would
total $43.9 million, about $11 million more than expected (see table
4). As a result, CBP's budget plans had to be revised late in the year
to accommodate this additional funding.
Table 4: AQI User-Fee Funds Transferred from APHIS to CBP during Fiscal
Years 2004 and 2005:
Dollars in thousands.
Month: October 2003;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: $48,500;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: $0.
Month: November 2003;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: December 2003;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: January 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 48,500;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: February 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: March 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: April 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 48,500;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 118,000.
Month: May 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: June 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 29,500.
Month: July 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 48,500;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: August 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 29,500.
Month: September 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 17,000.
Total, fiscal year 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2004: $194,000;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: $194,000.
Month: October 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: $48,814;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: $0.
Month: November 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 32,820.
Month: December 2004;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: January 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 48,814;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: February 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 65,640.
Month: March 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: April 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 48,814;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 32,820.
Month: May 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: June 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 32,820.
Month: July 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 48,814;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Month: August 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 43,900.
Month: September 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: 0;
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: 0.
Total, fiscal year 2005;
Agreed upon quarterly transfer schedule: Fiscal year 2005: $195,257[A];
Actual transfers: Fiscal year 2004: $208,000.
Sources: APHIS and CBP budget offices.
[A] Totals may not be exact due to rounding.
[End of table]
In addition, technical difficulties in the fund transfer process also
delayed the transfer of funds to CBP, and at one point during fiscal
year 2004, CBP did not have available funding from user fees for over 6
months. In this instance, APHIS transferred $88.5 million from October
2003 to February 2004 into a DHS Treasury account used for fiscal year
2003 transfers. However, APHIS officials told us that the Office of
Management and Budget had established a new Treasury account for CBP,
and CBP officials did not advise APHIS of the change. Ultimately, APHIS
withdrew the funds from the original account and transferred them as
part of the April 2004 transfer, which totaled $118 million, but it
took longer than 5 months to resolve the issue. Similarly, two other
fund transfers were delayed in fiscal year 2005 because APHIS did not
comply with a Treasury rule requiring that agencies cite the relevant
statutory authority when submitting a request to transfer funds to
another agency. In one instance, APHIS ultimately transferred $65.6
million to CBP in February 2005 rather than transferring one payment in
January 2005 for $32.8 million and another payment in February 2005 for
$32.8 million.
In October 2005, APHIS and CBP revised their agreement, which outlined
the process the agencies would follow for transferring user fees and
the financial reporting on the use of those funds. Under the revised
agreement, APHIS, beginning in November 2005, is to make 6 bimonthly
transfers to CBP in fiscal year 2006 totaling $211.1 million. Figure 3
illustrates the process APHIS uses to collect user fees and transfer
funds to CBP for fiscal year 2006.
Figure 3: Collection and Transfer of User Fees from APHIS to CBP for
Fiscal Year 2006:
[See PDF for image]
[A] The six AQI user fees are assessed on international air passengers,
commercial aircraft, commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial
truck decals, and commercial railroad cars.
[End of figure]
As shown in figure 3, APHIS was to transfer $35,186,667 to CBP in
November 2005. However, contrary to the new agreement, APHIS
transferred $35,166,667--$20,000 less than CBP expected--on November
30, 2005. When asked why they did not receive the correct amount in
accordance with the revised agreement, CBP officials agreed to
investigate the discrepancy and found that their staff was working to
correct the problem. APHIS officials told us that their budget office
used a rounded amount of $211 million for the fiscal year to distribute
the payments, resulting in the $20,000 shortage for the distribution.
APHIS officials told us that the budget office did not have a copy of
the current distribution schedule from the revised agreement and did
not know the exact amount of the required payment. They also stated
that the budget office now has the agreement and will make the proper
bimonthly transfers going forward. According to APHIS officials, the
January 2006 transfer included an additional $20,000 to address the
discrepancy we identified with the November transfer. APHIS and CBP
believe that the revised agreement, which also provides for quarterly
face-to-face meetings between the agencies, should improve
communication, assure transparency in the transfer process, and prevent
future problems in the transfer of funds.
Conclusions:
The global marketplace and increased imports of agricultural products
and international travelers into the United States have increased the
number of pathways for the movement and introduction of foreign,
invasive agricultural pests and diseases, such as avian influenza and
foot-and-mouth disease. Maintaining the effectiveness of federal
programs to prevent accidental or deliberate introduction of
potentially destructive organisms is critical given the importance of
agriculture to the U.S. economy. Accordingly, effective management of
AQI programs is necessary to ensure that agriculture issues receive
appropriate attention in the context of CBP's overall missions of
detecting and preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering
the United States and facilitating the orderly and efficient flow of
legitimate trade and travel.
Although the transfer of agricultural quarantine inspections from
USDA's APHIS to DHS's CBP has resulted in some improvements as a result
of the integration of agriculture issues into CBP's overall
antiterrorism mission, significant coordination and management issues
remain that leave U.S. agriculture vulnerable to the threat of foreign
pests and disease. Because the Homeland Security Act of 2002 divided
AQI responsibilities between USDA and DHS, the two departments must
work more closely to address key coordination weaknesses, including
enhancing communication between APHIS's AQI policy experts and CBP's
agriculture specialists in the field, to ensure that critical
inspection information reaches these frontline inspectors; to review
policies and procedures for the agriculture canine program to improve
the effectiveness of this key inspection tool; and to revise AQI user
fees. Furthermore, both departments must work to address key management
weaknesses in their respective areas of responsibility. Specifically,
in light of the AQI program's expanded mission, DHS needs to develop
and adopt meaningful performance measures to assess the AQI program's
effectiveness at intercepting prohibited agricultural materials;
implement a national risk-based staffing model to ensure that adequate
numbers of agriculture specialists are staffed to areas of greatest
vulnerability; and review its financial management systems to ensure
financial accountability for funds allocated to the AQI program. It is
also important that user fees be adjusted to meet the program's costs,
as authorized (but not required) by law. Without decisive action, APHIS
and CBP could be forced to cut back on agriculture inspections if costs
continue to exceed program revenues. Such cutbacks could increase the
potential for animal and plant pests and diseases to enter the United
States and could disrupt trade if agriculture specialists were not
available to inspect and clear passengers and cargo on a timely basis.
By overcoming these challenges, the United States would be in a better
position to protect agriculture from the economic harm posed by foreign
pests and disease.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To ensure the effectiveness of CBP and APHIS agricultural quarantine
inspection programs designed to protect U.S. agriculture from
accidental or deliberate introduction of foreign pests and disease, we
are making the following seven recommendations:
We recommend that the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Agriculture
work together to:
* adopt meaningful performance measures for assessing the AQI program's
effectiveness at intercepting foreign pests and disease on agricultural
materials entering the country by all pathways--including commercial
aircraft, vessels, and truck cargo--and posing a risk to U.S.
agriculture;
* establish a process to identify and assess the major risks posed by
foreign pests and disease and develop and implement a national staffing
model to ensure that agriculture staffing levels at each port are
sufficient to meet those risks;
* ensure that urgent agriculture alerts and other information essential
to safeguarding U.S. agriculture are more effectively shared between
the departments and transmitted to DHS agriculture specialists in the
ports;
* improve the effectiveness of the agriculture canine program by
reviewing policies and procedures regarding training and staffing of
agriculture canines and ensure that these policies and procedures are
followed in the ports; and:
* revise the user fees to ensure that they cover the AQI program's
costs.
We recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security undertake a full
review of its financial management systems, policies, and procedures
for the AQI program to ensure financial accountability for funds
allocated for agricultural quarantine inspections.
We recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture take steps to assess and
remove barriers to the timely and accurate transfer of AQI user fees to
DHS.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided USDA and DHS with a draft of this report for their review
and comment. We received written comments on the report and its
recommendations from both departments.
USDA commented that the report accurately captures some of the key
operational challenges facing the two departments as they work to
protect U.S. agriculture from unintentional and deliberate introduction
of foreign agricultural pests and diseases. USDA generally agreed with
the report's recommendations, adding that APHIS has already made some
improvements to address our recommendations. For example, the
department reported that APHIS has made improvements in the transfer of
funds to CBP as a result of revisions to the interagency agreement with
CBP. We had noted these changes in the report. In addition, USDA
offered to work with DHS on our recommendations that DHS (1) adopt
meaningful performance measures to assess AQI program's effectiveness
and (2) establish a process to identify and assess the major risks
posed by foreign pests and disease and develop and implement a national
staffing model to address those risks. We modified the recommendations
to involve USDA accordingly. USDA's written comments and our detailed
response appear in appendix III. USDA also provided technical comments
that we incorporated, as appropriate, throughout the report.
DHS commented that the report was balanced and accurate and agreed with
its overall substance and findings. DHS generally agreed with our
recommendations and indicated that CBP has begun the process of
implementing, or has implemented parts of, our recommendations. For
example, as we note in the report, CBP has begun the process of
creating new performance measures for assessing the AQI program's
effectiveness. DHS stated that the new measures are scheduled to be in
place by the beginning of fiscal year 2007. Also, DHS commented that
CBP has developed a prototype staffing model methodology that it
intends to develop into a final model to monitor and track the evolving
staffing needs and priorities of the agency. With regard to our
recommendation that DHS review its financial management systems to
ensure accountability for AQI funds, DHS stated that it believes
actions taken over the course of our review have addressed our
concerns. We continue to believe that DHS needs to monitor outcomes of
these recent changes during the coming fiscal year to ensure that they
provide necessary accountability for the use of AQI funds. DHS's
written comments and our detailed response appear in appendix IV. DHS
also provided technical comments that we incorporated, as appropriate,
throughout the report.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of Homeland
Security and Agriculture and interested congressional committees. We
will also make copies available to others on request. In addition, this
report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov.]
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or bertonid@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions
to this report are listed in appendix V.
Signed by:
Daniel Bertoni:
Acting Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To assess the extent to which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have changed the
Agricultural Quarantine Inspection (AQI) program since the transfer of
responsibilities from USDA to DHS, we reviewed the 2003 Memorandum of
Agreement between the United States Department of Homeland Security and
the United States Department of Agriculture, dated February 28, 2003,
and the associated appendixes governing how USDA and DHS are to
coordinate inspection responsibilities. We also reviewed agency
documentation, including training materials for newly hired Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) officers, information on databases used by CBP
agricultural specialists to target agriculture inspections, joint-
agency reports on port compliance with agricultural inspection policy,
and information related to CBP's establishment and utilization of new
agriculture liaison positions. In addition, we interviewed key program
officials at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
and CBP to discuss changes to the AQI program, including officials
responsible for training, implementing inspection targeting
initiatives, conducting port reviews, and overseeing communication of
agricultural issues within CBP.
To assess how the departments have managed and coordinated their
agriculture inspection responsibilities, we reviewed the interagency
memorandum of agreement between DHS and USDA and its associated
appendixes. We also reviewed agency documentation, including DHS's
Performance and Accountability Reports, APHIS's model for staffing
agriculture specialists at ports, data from APHIS's Work Accomplishment
Data System for fiscal years 2000 through 2005, agency e-mails
communicating agriculture alerts and policy information, proposals for
joint-agency special operations at ports, and agency policy governing
agriculture inspection training and the agriculture canine program. We
performed a reliability assessment of the data we analyzed for fiscal
years 2000 through 2005 and determined that the data were sufficiently
reliable for the purposes of this report. We also visited all three
training centers for port of entry staff that conduct agricultural
training--the USDA Professional Development Center, in Frederick,
Maryland; the USDA National Detector Dog Training Center in Orlando,
Florida; and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in
Glynco, Georgia--to observe training and interview current students,
instructors, and staff. In addition, we interviewed key program
officials at CBP and APHIS with knowledge of AQI management issues,
such as performance measures, staffing, interagency coordination,
training, and the agriculture canine program.
Furthermore, to ascertain agricultural specialists' assessment of the
agriculture quarantine inspection program since the transfer of
inspection responsibilities from USDA to DHS, we drew a stratified
random probability sample of 831 agriculture specialists from the
approximately 1,800 specialists (current as of Oct. 14, 2005) in the
Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection. All
canine specialists were placed in one stratum; other strata were
defined by the number of specialists at the respective ports. We
conducted a Web-based survey of all specialists in the sample. Each
sampled specialist was subsequently weighted in the analysis to account
statistically for all specialists in the population. We received a
response rate of 76 percent. We chose to sample agriculture specialists
who had recently been hired by CBP, as well as former APHIS employees
who had been transferred to CBP, including agriculture supervisors, to
get their various perspectives on the AQI program.
The survey contained 31 questions that asked for opinions and
assessments of (1) agriculture inspection training, (2) agriculture
inspection duties, (3) communication and information sharing within CBP
and between other agencies, and (4) changes in the number of
agriculture inspections and interceptions since the transfer. In
addition, the survey included questions specifically for canine
handlers, agriculture supervisors, and former APHIS employees. In
developing the questionnaire, we met with CBP and APHIS officials to
gain a thorough understanding of the AQI program. We also shared a
draft copy of the questionnaire with CBP officials, who provided us
with comments, including technical corrections. We then pretested the
questionnaire with CBP agriculture specialists at ports of entry in
Georgia, Maryland, Texas, and Washington state. During these pretests,
we asked the officials to complete the Web-based survey as we observed
the process. After completing the survey, we interviewed the
respondents to ensure that (1) questions were clear and unambiguous,
(2) the terms we used were precise, (3) the questionnaire did not place
an undue burden on CBP agriculture specialists completing it, and (4)
the questionnaire was independent and unbiased. On the basis of the
feedback from the pretests, we modified the questions, as appropriate.
The questionnaire was posted on GAO's survey Web site. When the survey
was activated, the officials who had been selected to participate were
informed of its availability with an e-mail message that contained a
unique user name and password. This allowed respondents to log on and
fill out a questionnaire but did not allow respondents access to the
questionnaires of others. The survey was available from November 17,
2005, until January 9, 2006. Results of the survey to CBP agriculture
specialists are summarized in appendix II.
Because we followed a probability procedure based on random selections,
our sample is only one of a large number of samples we might have
drawn. Since each sample could have provided different estimates, we
express our confidence in the precision of our particular sample's
results as 95 percent confidence intervals (e.g., plus or minus 7
percentage points). These are intervals that would contain the actual
population values for 95 percent of the samples we could have drawn. As
a result, we are 95 percent confident that each of the confidence
intervals in this report from our survey of agriculture specialists
will include the true values in the study population. All percentage
estimates from the survey of agriculture specialists have margins of
error (that is, confidence interval widths) of plus or minus 10
percentage points or less, unless otherwise noted. All numerical
estimates other than percentages (e.g., means) have margins of error
not exceeding plus or minus 15 percent of the value of those estimates,
unless otherwise noted.
To determine how funding for agriculture inspections has been managed
since the transfer from USDA to DHS, we reviewed the interagency
memorandum of agreement between DHS and USDA--specifically the
appendix, Article 5: Transfer of Funds, originally signed on February
9, 2004, and revised on October 5, 2005. Further, we compared the
amount of revenue generated from the user fees with program costs
reported by CBP and APHIS on agriculture inspections in fiscal years
2001 through 2005. We also reviewed relevant agency documentation,
including proposals for increasing user-fee collections, budget
classification handbooks, cost analysis worksheets, and user-fee
collection and expense analyses. In addition, we reviewed how funds
were transferred between APHIS and CBP and the impact of these
transfers on their operations. Lastly, we interviewed senior CBP and
APHIS financial management officials concerning AQI user-fee
collections, cost management, and the transfer of funds from APHIS to
CBP.
We conducted our review from April 2005 through March 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Results of GAO Survey of CBP Agricultural Specialists:
This appendix provides the results from our Web-based survey of CBP
agriculture specialists. (App. I contains details of our survey
methodology.) We selected a statistical sample of 831 specialists.
Within this population, we asked questions of, and analyzed data for,
three groups: (1) former APHIS inspectors--also referred to as plant
protection and quarantine (PPQ) officers in the survey; (2) newly hired
CBP agriculture specialists; and (3) canine agriculture specialists.
The survey contained 31 questions about the experiences and opinions of
the specialists. We omitted questions 3 and 23, which were used to help
respondents navigate the survey. We received 628 completed surveys--an
overall response rate of 76 percent. We indicate the number of
respondents below each question because not every respondent answered
every question. We also rounded the responses to the nearest whole
percent, and, therefore, totals may not add to 100 percent.
Part 1: Demographic Information:
1. What is your job title at CBP?
Title: Agriculture Specialist;
Percent: 80.
Title: Agriculture Specialist/ Canine Handler;
Percent: 5.
Title: Supervisory Agriculture Specialist;
Percent: 13.
Title: Other;
Percent: 2.
n=626:
[End of table]
2. For which of the following pathways did you conduct agricultural
inspections during the past year? (Please check all that apply.)
Pathway: Did not conduct inspections;
Percent: 1.
Pathway: Aircraft;
Percent: 55.
Pathway: Air passenger;
Percent: 73.
Pathway: Air cargo;
Percent: 55.
Pathway: Maritime ship;
Percent: 34.
Pathway: Maritime passenger;
Percent: 18.
Pathway: Maritime cargo;
Percent: 32.
Pathway: Pedestrian;
Percent: 18.
Pathway: Vehicles;
Percent: 23.
Pathway: Truck;
Percent: 22.
Pathway: Bus;
Percent: 20.
Pathway: USPS mail;
Percent: 14.
Pathway: Express mail;
Percent: 16.
Pathway: Inland inspection;
Percent: 5.
Pathway: Rail cargo;
Percent: 17.
Pathway: Rail passenger;
Percent: 2.
Pathway: Other;
Percent: 5.
n=624:
[End of table]
Part 2: Information from Former USDA PPQ Officers:
4. When did you begin working as a USDA PPQ Officer (not as an
agriculture technician or aide)?
Year: 1960-1969;
Percent: 1.
Year: 1970-1979;
Percent: 5.
Year: 1980-1989;
Percent: 22.
Year: 1990-1999;
Percent: 29.
Year: 2000-2003;
Percent: 44.
n=442:
[End of table]
5. During your first year working as a USDA PPQ Officer, about how many
weeks did you spend in on-the-job (in port) training? (Please include
such things as shadowing, observation, and coaching. Do not include
time spent at the Professional Development Center. If you spent less
than one week, please enter 1.)
Type of training: Agriculture inspections;
Mean number of weeks: 16;
Number of respondents: 443.
Type of training: Not agriculture inspections;
Mean number of weeks: 3;
Number of respondents: 446.
[End of table]
6. Do you believe you received sufficient training (on-the-job and at
the Professional Development Center) to enable you to perform your
agriculture inspection duties?
Response: Definitely yes;
Percent: 58.
Response: Probably yes;
Percent: 32.
Response: Uncertain;
Percent: 1.
Response: Probably not;
Percent: 4.
Response: Definitely not;
Percent: 3.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 1.
n=448:
[End of table]
7. Are you, personally, doing more, about the same number, or fewer
agriculture inspections compared to what you were doing before being
transferred to CBP?
Response: Many more;
Percent: 10.
Response: Somewhat more;
Percent: 12.
Response: About the same;
Percent: 15.
Response: Somewhat fewer;
Percent: 24.
Response: Many fewer;
Percent: 35.
Response: Not applicable;
Percent: 5.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 0.
n=448:
[End of table]
8. Are you, personally, doing more, about the same number, or fewer
agriculture interceptions compared to what you were doing before being
transferred to CBP?
Response: Many more;
Percent: 5.
Response: Somewhat more;
Percent: 7.
Response: About the same;
Percent: 17.
Response: Somewhat fewer;
Percent: 19.
Response: Many fewer;
Percent: 41.
Response: Not applicable;
Percent: 9.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 1.
n=448:
[End of table]
9. Which of the following inspection activities did you regularly
perform as a PPQ Officer prior to being transferred to CBP, and which
do you regularly perform now? (Please check all that apply.)
Inspection activity: Boarding aircraft;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 59;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 3;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 32;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 5;
Number of respondents: 405.
Inspection activity: Boarding ships;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 40;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 4;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 27;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 30;
Number of respondents: 350.
Inspection activity: Compliance agreements;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 43;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 3;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 22;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 32;
Number of respondents: 363.
Inspection activity: Compliance checks;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 52;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 3;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 29;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 16;
Number of respondents: 381.
Inspection activity: Disinfection;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 49;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 1;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 41;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 9;
Number of respondents: 380.
Inspection activity: Fumigation;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 72;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 0;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 1;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 27;
Number of respondents: 368.
Inspection activity: Roving;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 36;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 9;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 39;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 17;
Number of respondents: 349.
Inspection activity: Safeguarding;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 40;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 3;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 53;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 4;
Number of respondents: 404.
Inspection activity: Other;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer but not now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 57;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer but now as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist: (percent): 14;
Regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 25;
Not regularly performed as PPQ Officer and CBP Agriculture Specialist:
(percent): 4;
Number of respondents: 164.
[End of table]
Part 3: Information from CBP Agriculture Specialists Hired After March
1, 2003.
10. When did you begin working as a CBP Agriculture Specialist?
Year: 2003;
Percent: 3.
Year: 2004;
Percent: 30.
Year: 2005;
Percent: 66.
n=173:
[End of table]
11. During your first year working as a CBP Agriculture Specialist,
about how many weeks did you spend in on-the-job (in port) training?
(Please include such things as shadowing, observation, and coaching. Do
not include time spent at the Professional Development Center. If you
spent less than one week, please enter 1.)
Type of training: Agriculture inspections;
Began in 2003 or 2004 (mean number of weeks): 14[A];
Began in 2005: (mean number of weeks): 12[A].
Type of training: Not agriculture inspections;
Began in 2003 or 2004 (mean number of weeks): 6;
Began in 2005: (mean number of weeks): 3.
n=170:
[A] The sampling margins of error of these estimates do not exceed plus
or minus 20 percent of the value of the estimates.
[End of table]
12. Do you believe you received sufficient training (on-the-job and at
the Professional Development Center) to enable you to perform your
agriculture inspection duties?
Response: Definitely yes;
Percent: 36.
Response: Probably yes;
Percent: 39.
Response: Uncertain;
Percent: 11.
Response: Probably not;
Percent: 8.
Response: Definitely not;
Percent: 5.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 2.
n=174:
[End of table]
Part 4: Your Work at CBP:
13. During the past 6 months about what percentage of your time did you
spend on agriculture and nonagriculture CBP duties? (Please enter
percentages in boxes. If none, enter 0. Percentage total should be
100.)
Duties: Agriculture inspections and associated activities;
Mean: 62.
Duties: Customs and Immigration inspections and associated activities;
Mean: 14.
Duties: Work not related to inspections (e.g., administrative work,
training);
Mean: 21.
Duties: Work other than that listed above;
Mean: 3[A].
n=615:
[A] The sampling margins of error of this estimate is plus or minus 22
percent of the value of the estimate.
[End of table]
14. For each pay period, do you provide the number of hours you worked
on agriculture inspection and the number of hours you worked on customs
and immigration inspection to your supervisor or timekeeper?
Response: Yes;
Percent: 9.
Response: No;
Percent: 81.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 10.
n=626:
[End of table]
15. Are the following supplies readily available to you? (Please check
one in each row. If you do not use a supply, please check 'Do not
Use.'):
Percent;
Collection vials for pest samples;
Response: Always: 43;
Response: Most of the Time: 29;
Response Some of the Time: 18;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 6;
Response: Do not Use: 3;
Response: No Answer: 1.
Forms for submitting pest samples;
Response: Always: 52;
Response: Most of the Time: 25;
Response Some of the Time: 15;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 4;
Response: Do not Use: 3;
Response: No Answer: 1.
Garbage bags for intercepted material;
Response: Always: 43;
Response: Most of the Time: 28;
Response Some of the Time: 17;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 8;
Response: Do not Use: 4;
Response: No Answer: 1.
Latex gloves;
Response: Always: 48;
Response: Most of the Time: 29;
Response Some of the Time: 18;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 3;
Response: Do not Use: 2;
Response: No Answer: 1.
n=626:
[End of table]
16. Do you have easy access to USDA regulatory manuals during
inspections? (Please check one in each row.)
Percent;
Online USDA regulatory manuals;
Response: Always: 50;
Response: Most of the Time: 23;
Response Some of the Time: 16;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 9;
Response: Do not Use: 2;
Response: No Answer: 1.
Current (updated) printed USDA regulatory manuals;
Response: Always: 20;
Response: Most of the Time: 19;
Response Some of the Time: 18;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 32;
Response: Do not Use: 7;
Response: No Answer: 4.
n=626:
[End of table]
17. Do you have enough time to look for pests in agriculture materials
intercepted from passengers?
Response: Always;
Percent: 10.
Response: Most of the time;
Percent: 27.
Response: Some of the time;
Percent: 31.
Response: Never or almost never;
Percent: 15.
Response: Not applicable;
Percent: 15.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 2.
n=626:
[End of table]
18. How easy or difficult is it for you to get samples to a pest
identifier?
Response: Very easy;
Percent: 29.
Response: Somewhat easy;
Percent: 31.
Response: Neither easy nor difficult;
Percent: 14.
Response: Somewhat difficult;
Percent: 12.
Response: Very difficult;
Percent: 6.
Response: Not applicable;
Percent: 4.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 3.
n=626:
[End of table]
19. When you send a sample to a pest identifier, about how long does it
usually take to get the results?
Percent;
One day or less;
Type of sample: Urgent: 41;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 5.
2 to 3 days;
Type of sample: Urgent: 24;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 9.
4 days to 1 week;
Type of sample: Urgent: 6;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 8.
One week to 1 month;
Type of sample: Urgent: 3;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 25.
More than 1 month;
Type of sample: Urgent: 4;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 36.
Not applicable;
Type of sample: Urgent: 11;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 6.
No answer;
Type of sample: Urgent: 12;
Type of sample: Nonurgent: 13.
n=626:
[End of table]
20. How are the following types of information delivered to you? If you
do not receive a type of information on a regular basis, please
indicate that. (Please check all that apply.)
Type of information: Urgent agriculture alerts;
Method of delivery: E- mail from CBP (percent): 71;
Method of delivery: E-mail from another agency (percent): 26;
Method of delivery: Muster (percent): 43;
Method of delivery: Other type of communication: (percent): 11;
Method of delivery: Not received on a regular basis (percent): 12;
Method of delivery: Number of respondents: 604.
Type of information: Pest alerts;
Method of delivery: E-mail from CBP (percent): 65;
Method of delivery: E-mail from another agency (percent): 31;
Method of delivery: Muster (percent): 35;
Method of delivery: Other type of communication: (percent): 10;
Method of delivery: Not received on a regular basis (percent): 13;
Method of delivery: Number of respondents: 599.
Type of information: Regulatory changes;
Method of delivery: E-mail from CBP (percent): 53;
Method of delivery: E-mail from another agency (percent): 33;
Method of delivery: Muster (percent): 23;
Method of delivery: Other type of communication: (percent): 11;
Method of delivery: Not received on a regular basis (percent): 20;
Method of delivery: Number of respondents: 590.
Type of information: Updated pages for regulatory manual;
Method of delivery: E-mail from CBP (percent): 40;
Method of delivery: E-mail from another agency (percent): 36;
Method of delivery: Muster (percent): 7;
Method of delivery: Other type of communication: (percent): 9;
Method of delivery: Not received on a regular basis (percent): 29;
Method of delivery: Number of respondents: 524.
[End of table]
21. Is the information delivered to you in a timely manner? (Please
check one in each row.)
Percent;
Urgent agriculture alerts;
Response: Always: 21;
Response: Most of the Time: 41;
Response: Some of the Time: 25;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 7;
Response: Do not Receive: 3;
Response: No Answer: 2.
Pest alerts;
Response: Always: 19;
Response: Most of the Time: 42;
Response: Some of the Time: 25;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 8;
Response: Do not Receive: 4;
Response: No Answer: 2.
Agriculture regulatory changes;
Response: Always: 17;
Response: Most of the Time: 38;
Response: Some of the Time: 26;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 12;
Response: Do not Receive: 5;
Response: No Answer: 2.
Updated pages for agriculture regulatory manual;
Response: Always: 18;
Response: Most of the Time: 31;
Response: Some of the Time: 17;
Response: Never or Almost Never: 18;
Response: Do not Receive: 14;
Response: No Answer: 2.
n=626:
[End of table]
22. During the past year, about how many hours per month did you spend
compiling and entering data into the databases listed below? (Please
check one in each row.)
Percent;
AQIM;
Hours per month: Zero: 39;
Hours per month: 1-5: 27;
Hours per month: 6-10: 11;
Hours per month: 11-15: 3;
Hours per month: 16-20: 3;
Hours per month: 21-25: 1;
Hours per month: Greater than 25: 6;
Hours per month: No Answer: 11.
EAN;
Hours per month: Zero: 47;
Hours per month: 1-5: 22;
Hours per month: 6-10: 8;
Hours per month: 11-15: 1;
Hours per month: 16-20: 2;
Hours per month: 21-25: 0;
Hours per month: Greater than 25: 2;
Hours per month: No Answer: 18.
PPQ280;
Hours per month: Zero: 43;
Hours per month: 1-5: 24;
Hours per month: 6-10: 7;
Hours per month: 11-15: 2;
Hours per month: 16-20: 3;
Hours per month: 21-25: 1;
Hours per month: Greater than 25: 5;
Hours per month: No Answer: 16.
WADS;
Hours per month: Zero: 42;
Hours per month: 1-5: 24;
Hours per month: 6-10: 7;
Hours per month: 11-15: 6;
Hours per month: 16-20: 2;
Hours per month: 21-25: 2;
Hours per month: Greater than 25: 4;
Hours per month: No Answer: 13.
n=626:
[End of table]
Part 5: Questions for Canine Handlers:
24. Are the following resources readily available to you? (Please check
one in each row.)
Percent;
Funding for veterinary visits;
Response: Always: 45;
Response: Usually: 33;
Response: Sometimes: 13;
Response: Never: 0;
Response: Not Applicable: 1;
Response: No Answer: 8.
Funding for supplies (for example, training aids);
Response: Always: 6;
Response: Usually: 21;
Response: Sometimes: 58;
Response: Never: 7;
Response: Not Applicable: 0;
Response: No Answer: 8.
Funding for kennel space;
Response: Always: 60;
Response: Usually: 19;
Response: Sometimes: 6;
Response: Never: 0;
Response: Not Applicable: 6;
Response: No Answer: 9.
Space for storage of supplies and practice materials;
Response: Always: 31;
Response: Usually: 22;
Response: Sometimes: 33;
Response: Never: 4;
Response: Not Applicable: 0;
Response: No Answer: 9.
Refrigerator(s) for perishable training materials;
Response: Always: 52;
Response: Usually: 21;
Response: Sometimes: 15;
Response: Never: 3;
Response: Not Applicable: 0;
Response: No Answer: 9.
n=62:
[End of table]
25. During the past year, have there been any instances when you
thought it would be helpful to contact the National Detector Dog
Training Center, but you were told by CBP management not to contact
them?
Response: Yes;
Percent: 65.
Response: No;
Percent: 18.
Response: Uncertain;
Percent: 4.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 12.
n=62:
[End of table]
26. Does CBP management allow you enough time each month to schedule
training with your dog?
Response: Always;
Percent: 51.
Response: Most of the time;
Percent: 28.
Response: Some of the time;
Percent: 12.
Response: Never or almost never;
Percent: 1.
Response: Not applicable;
Percent: 0.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 8.
n=62:
[End of table]
27. During the past year, about how frequently have you been directed
to perform duties outside your primary mission as a Canine Handler?
Frequency: Every day;
Percent: 22.
Frequency: Several times a week;
Percent: 24.
Frequency: Once a week;
Percent: 3.
Frequency: Two to three times a month;
Percent: 21.
Frequency: Once a month;
Percent: 4.
Frequency: Less than once a month;
Percent: 7.
Frequency: Never or almost never;
Percent: 7.
Frequency: No answer;
Percent: 11.
n=62:
[End of table]
Part 6: Your Views and Opinions about Working at CBP:
28. Based on you own experiences, how would you describe the work-
related communication between Agriculture Specialists and the others
listed below? (Please check one in each row.)
Percent;
Agriculture specialists at other ports;
Response: Excellent: 8;
Response: Good: 28;
Response: Fair: 23;
Response: Poor: 29;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 11;
Response: No Answer: 1.
CBP officers at your port;
Response: Excellent: 9;
Response: Good: 41;
Response: Fair: 31;
Response: Poor: 19;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 0;
Response: No Answer: 0.
CBP supervisors;
Response: Excellent: 8;
Response: Good: 30;
Response: Fair: 34;
Response: Poor: 26;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 0;
Response: No Answer: 1.
CBP chiefs and port directors;
Response: Excellent: 7;
Response: Good: 20;
Response: Fair: 33;
Response: Poor: 37;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 2;
Response: No Answer: 1.
USDA PPQ and APHIS;
Response: Excellent: 10;
Response: Good: 31;
Response: Fair: 27;
Response: Poor: 26;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 5;
Response: No Answer: 1.
USDA Veterinary Services;
Response: Excellent: 12;
Response: Good: 29;
Response: Fair: 26;
Response: Poor: 18;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 11;
Response: No Answer: 3.
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Services;
Response: Excellent: 3;
Response: Good: 15;
Response: Fair: 17;
Response: Poor: 26;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 33;
Response: No Answer: 6.
USDA meat inspectors;
Response: Excellent: 0;
Response: Good: 9;
Response: Fair: 9;
Response: Poor: 23;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 39;
Response: No Answer: 20.
Fish and Wildlife Services;
Response: Excellent: 11;
Response: Good: 34;
Response: Fair: 21;
Response: Poor: 20;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 10;
Response: No Answer: 3.
Centers for Disease Control;
Response: Excellent: 2;
Response: Good: 9;
Response: Fair: 12;
Response: Poor: 23;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 48;
Response: No Answer: 6.
Food and Drug Administration;
Response: Excellent: 4;
Response: Good: 17;
Response: Fair: 19;
Response: Poor: 21;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 32;
Response: No Answer: 7.
Public Health Service;
Response: Excellent: 3;
Response: Good: 11;
Response: Fair: 13;
Response: Poor: 24;
Response: No Basis to Judge: 41;
Response: No Answer: 7.
n=626:
[End of table]
29. In your experience, does your port have enough Agriculture
Specialists to carry out agriculture duties?
Response: Definitely yes;
Percent: 12.
Response: Probably yes;
Percent: 16.
Response: Uncertain;
Percent: 8.
Response: Probably not;
Percent: 21.
Response: Definitely not;
Percent: 42.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 1.
n=626:
[End of table]
30. How prepared do you feel for your duties as an Agriculture
Specialist?
Response: Very well prepared;
Percent: 53.
Response: Somewhat prepared;
Percent: 33.
Response: Neither prepared or unprepared;
Percent: 5.
Response: Somewhat unprepared;
Percent: 4.
Response: Very unprepared;
Percent: 3.
Response: No answer;
Percent: 2.
n=626:
[End of table]
31. In general, do you feel that your work as a CBP Agriculture
Specialist is respected by CBP Officers and Management?
Percent;
CBP Officers;
Response: Definitely yes: 7;
Response: Probably Yes: 18;
Response: Uncertain: 14;
Response: Probably Not: 26;
Response: Definitely Not: 35;
Response: No Answer: 0.
CBP Management;
Response: Definitely yes: 6;
Response: Probably Yes: 14;
Response: Uncertain: 15;
Response: Probably Not: 22;
Response: Definitely Not: 2;
Response: No Answer: 1.
n=626:
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
USDA:
United States Department of Agriculture:
Office of the Secretary:
Washington, D.C.20250:
Mr. Dan Bertoni:
Acting Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO):
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Bertoni:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on GAO's draft report,
"Homeland Security: Management and Coordination Problems Increase the
Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease" (GAO-
06-644). The Department of Agriculture (USDA) appreciates the in-depth
review and analyses provided in the report.
We found the report factual and generally positive in recognizing the
coordination activities taking place between USDA and the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS). We also believe that the report accurately
captures some of the key operational challenges facing the two
departments as they continue to protect United States citizens and the
economy against unintentional and deliberate introduction of foreign
agricultural pests and diseases. USDA will continue to do all it can to
improve its coordination with DHS and to protect U. S. agriculture.
We generally agree with the report's recommendations. We believe,
however, that the first two recommendations to the Secretary of
Homeland Security, to adopt meaningful performance measures and to
establish a process to identify and assess the major risks posed by
foreign pests and disease and develop a national staffing model, should
be moved to the next section of the report which contains those
recommendations on which the Secretaries of Homeland Security and
Agriculture should work together.
USDA generally agrees that the process used for transfer of funds to
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) needed improvement, and is pleased
to report that improvements have been made. In 2005, the Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) assessed the transfer process
and implemented improvements. As part of this process, APHIS and CBP
revised their agreement by incorporating a provision for making bi-
monthly transfers. APHIS has made the first three transfers in fiscal
year (FY) 2006 on time, in accordance with the agreed upon schedule.
Further, the revised agreement provides for quarterly face-to-face
meetings between APHIS and CBP to assure transparency in the transfer
and to prevent misunderstandings like those cited in the report.
USDA has and will continue to do everything that it can to ensure that
urgent agriculture alerts and other necessary information essential to
protecting the U.S. agriculture are more effectively shared.
We believe that an effective canine program is an essential activity to
further inspect agriculture shipments and adds further to protect
citizens. We are currently in negotiation with CBP to include the
canine program in the Quality Assurance review process.
Lastly, the draft report recommends that the Secretaries of Homeland
Security and Agriculture work together to revise the user fees to
ensure that they cover the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection (AQI)
program's costs. USDA agrees with this recommendation. As GAO pointed
out, we note GAO's finding that CBP needs to develop performance
measures for assessing the AQI program and also needs to ensure their
new financial management system can adequately segregate the AQI
activities and provide APHIS with accurate costs by AQI user fee so
that the fees can be accurately revised. USDA and DHS will need to work
together to complete this phase.
As stated previously, APHIS and CBP are meeting quarterly to discuss
the transfer of funds and other AQI user fee issues and concerns.
During the April 2006 meeting, APHIS provided a revised estimate of AQI
collections. The revised FY 2006 user fee collection estimates were
divided between APHIS and CBP using the percentage allocation in the
Memorandum of Agreement. This provides CBP with a revised allocation of
$228.3 million (nearly a $17.2 million increase in funding for FY 06)
and APHIS with a revised allocation of $148.2 (nearly an $11.2 million
increase). The revised FY 2006 allocations will be used as the FY 2007
base level for AQI user fee distributions.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Mike Johanns:
Secretary:
GAO Comments:
1. We agree with USDA's suggestion regarding two of our
recommendations. We now recommend that the Secretaries of Agriculture
and Homeland Security work together to (1) adopt meaningful performance
measures for assessing the AQI program's effectiveness at intercepting
foreign pests and disease and (2) establish a process to identify and
assess the major risks posed by foreign pests and disease and develop
and implement a national staffing model to meet those risks.
2. USDA noted that revisions to APHIS's agreement with CBP should
address the concerns we raised in the report regarding the timely and
accurate transfer of AQI funds to CBP. USDA states that APHIS made the
first three transfers of fiscal year 2006 on time. We discuss these
positive steps in our report and note a problem with one of APHIS's
transfers. As USDA carries out its three-phase approach to revising
user fees, and DHS works to advance proposed consolidation of customs,
immigration, and agriculture user fees (see app. IV), we believe that
USDA must ensure that it follows the revised agreement to ensure timely
and accurate transfer of AQI user fees to DHS.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
Homeland Security:
May 10, 2006:
Mr. Daniel Bertoni:
Acting Director:
National Resources and Environment:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Bertoni:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) draft report entitled HOMELAND
SECURITY: Management and Coordination Problems Increase the
Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease" (GAO-
06-644). Technical comments have been provided under separate cover.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) appreciated the
opportunity to work with the GAO team in constructing a balanced and
accurate document. CBP agrees with the overall substance and findings
of the report. As stated in the draft report, CBP and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) have expanded training on agriculture
issues for CBP officers and agricultural specialists. CBP and USDA's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) are working together
to enable agricultural specialists to better target shipments and
passengers for inspections and established a process to assess how CBP
agricultural specialists are implementing Agricultural Quarantine
Inspection (AQI).
Though the primary responsibility to identify and assess risks of pests
and diseases lies with the USDA, CBP is assisting and encouraging USDA
in making such assessments. CBP established Pest Risk Committees within
the 20 CBP field offices to enhance CBP's ability to respond to
agriculture issues and threats at an operational level.
CBP would like to note that the title of the draft report does not
reflect GAO's conclusions within the report, as the title fails to
reflect that there may be uncertainty about the vulnerabilities
stemming from management and coordination problems. Therefore, CBP
recommends that GAO reword or insert the word "may" within the title of
the report to give a more accurate depiction of GAO's findings.
With regard to the draft report's specific recommendations, we submit
the following:
Recommendation 1: DHS adopt meaningful performance measures for
assessing the AQI program's effectiveness at intercepting foreign pests
or disease on agricultural materials entering the country by all
pathways-including commercial aircraft, vessels and truck cargo-that
pose a risk to U.S. agriculture.
CBP Concurs. CBP has begun the process of creating new performance
measures for assessing the AQI program's effectiveness. The new
measures are scheduled to be in place by the beginning of fiscal year
2007.
Recommendation 2: DHS establish a process to identify and assess the
major risks posed by foreign pests and disease and develop and
implement a national staffing model to ensure that agriculture staffing
levels at each port are sufficient to meet those risks.
CBP Concurs.
CBP's Agriculture Programs and Liaison (APL)-Process to identify and
assess the major risks posed by foreign pests and disease: Under the
Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between USDA and DHS signed February 28,
2003, USDA retained the responsibility of "providing risk analysis
guidance, including, in consultation with DHS, the setting of
inspection protocols." Per MOA, Article 3(a), as interpreted by both
CBP and USDA, the primary responsibility to identify and assess risks
of pests and diseases, lies with USDA. However, CBP has taken an active
role of assisting and encouraging USDA in making such assessments.
CBP required that each Field Operations Director establish for each
port or area a pest risk committee. CBP uses the Pest Risk Committees
to enhance CBP's ability to respond to agricultural issues and threats
by utilizing sources of expertise within and outside of CBP. Pest Risk
Committees have been formed and are operational in all field offices.
Committee ideas and suggestions regarding pathway, pest risk analysis,
and targeting may have national as well as local application.
Collectively, committees have a wealth of information that should be
shared with other locations. Pertinent information, project and
targeting suggestions and findings, are sent to APL and are shared,
when appropriate, with the rest of CBP.
Moreover, APL is in daily contact with USDA about emerging pests and
diseases. APL stays abreast of the various sources of information
concerning new developments. Additionally, APL has access to and
frequently reviews USDA databases that indicate new pest and disease
finds.
The Pest Risk Committees have already been formed and are operative.
Other efforts to obtain information about emerging pests and diseases
are already in place. As a result of these actions, we consider this
part of the recommendation to be closed.
Field and Resource Management (FRM)---Develop and implement a national
staffing model to ensure that agriculture staffing levels are
sufficient: FRM was tasked with developing an optimal staffing
allocation model for CBP officers and agriculture specialists at the
ports of entry. A Headquarters Development Team was assembled to craft
and create the prototype allocation model. The mission of the team was
to develop a basic Staffing Allocation Model that addressed staffing
needs and had the capability of adjusting to changes in workload,
processing time, complexity and threat levels. The goals included
developing a model that:
* Monitors and tracks the evolving staffing needs and priorities of the
agency;
* Is supported by current target numbers and further developed on a
quarterly basis;
* Will be a data driven model and able to provide an allocation based
on both constrained and unconstrained distribution;
* Will effectively respond to governmental and congressional inquiries
and audits.
CBP management approved the prototype model methodology. A meeting is
pending with the Acting CBP Commissioner for approval of the prototype
before being vetted to the field offices for input and data
verification. In the last phase, the Development Team will build the
architectural layout and design for the final model.
Recommendation 3: DHS undertake a full review of its financial
management systems, policies, and procedures for the AQI program to
ensure financial accountability for funds allocated for agricultural
quarantine inspections.
CBP Concurs. CBP's cost management information system (CMIS) is an
activity-based costing system that provides financial accountability
for funds allocated for AQI activities. In October 2004, CBP migrated
its financial accounting system from the Federal Financial System to an
integrated SAP enterprise budget and accounting system. The migration
caused several substantive changes in the structure of financial
operations and transaction processing and caused several challenges
with capturing and reporting on cost data. CBP took the following
corrective actions:
* March 2005: Improved the Budget Object Class and Cost Reporting to
map to SAP and collect full costs.
* April 2005: Revised CMIS activity codes to capture full costs for all
user fee services.
* May and August 2005: Improved expense and obligation reporting to
support new financial reporting.
Because CMIS's quality and reliability are driven by accurately
recording labor hours related to specific activities and because CBP's
time and labor systems are the major drivers for accurate cost
accumulation, CBP took the following additional actions:
* In June 2005, in an effort to gain a fully accurate picture of
service-related activities performed by CBP officers and agriculture
specialists, CBP performed surveys to define the percentages of time
spent performing customs-related, immigration-related and agriculture-
related services within the unified "One-Face at the Border" processing
environment.
* Beginning in November 2005, CBP initiated actions to improve the
internal control procedures to provide assurances that key workload
information is reliable.
* In January 2006, CBP created an internal evaluation group. The group
conducts ongoing assessments of data reliability and evaluates how
systems and methods of capturing user fee activity and processing
information can be improved.
Since January 2006, CBP has taken several corrective actions to
validate all process steps used in extracting expense data from its new
accounting and budgeting system to ensure that all costs are
accumulated.
* CBP is reviewing process steps used in extracting expense data from
its accounting system to ensure the cost accumulation processes are
operating as intended.
* In January 2006, CBP initiated an evaluation of all procedural steps
used within the cost management group to ensure that projections of
costs are reviewed and validated.
In January 2006, CBP began developing procedures to assure the quality
of data prior to integration into the activity-based costing tool. As a
result of these actions, we consider this recommendation to be closed.
Recommendation 4 is addressed only to USDA.
Recommendation 5: DHS and USDA work together to ensure that urgent
agriculture alerts and other information is more effectively shared
between the two departments and transmitted to DHS agriculture
specialists in the ports.
CBP Concurs. CBP disseminates all USDA alerts to CBP agriculture
specialists at the ports-of-entry within 24 hours of receipt from CBP
Headquarters. Additionally, Agriculture Programs and Liaison (APL),
working with Field and Resource Management (FRM), posts all alerts and
other vital information, including links to USDA manuals, on the CBP
intranet. As a result of these actions, we consider this recommendation
to be closed.
Recommendation 6: DHS and USDA work together to improve the
effectiveness of the agriculture canine program by reviewing policies
and procedures regarding training and staffing of agricultural canines
and ensure that these policies and procedures are followed in the ports.
CBP Concurs. The CBP Canine Enforcement Program (CEP) and the USDA
National Detector Dog Training Center (NDDTC) currently work together
on a reoccurring basis to develop policies and procedures for the
Agriculture Canine Program. CEP and NDDTC have worked together to
develop one canine certification process that captures the best
elements and combines the best practices of the CBP and USDA. CEP and
NDDTC established target odors for beagles and large breed dogs. CEP
and NDDTC implemented strategies for improving training at the USDA
National Detector Dog Training Center. CEP and NDDTC worked together to
develop the CBP Canine Enforcement Program Guide for Agriculture
Specialists Canine Officers dated September 14, 2005. Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP) for CBP Officers attending NDDTC are
currently being developed. Representatives from the NDDTC and the CBP
Canine Enforcement Training Center are reviewing the SOPS. In
collaboration with the USDA, CBP Canine Trainers were trained at the
USDA National Detector Dog Training Center on agriculture canine
training methodologies to maximize the utilization of the agriculture
canine to ensure the safety of American agriculture.
Recommendation 7: DHS and USDA work together to revise user fees to
ensure that they cover the AQI program's costs.
CBP Concurs. In August 2005, CBP initiated an effort to assess and
identify any operational and management problems that could be
attributable to having three different sets of fees (customs,
immigration, and agriculture) supporting the inspection functions in
light of the "One Face at the Border" initiative. The three categories
of fees have different spending, fee setting, and cost recovery
authorities, exemptions, and other non-harmonized elements that needed
to be examined in a holistic fashion. CBP's initial findings showed
that CBP and the transportation industry were facing challenges due to
incomplete consolidation of the financial stream that supports CBP's
inspection functions. For example, CBP found that under the status quo
officers must account for their time and charge against three separate
sets of activity codes for purposes of spending against the customs,
immigration and agriculture fee accounts. As a result, time keeping
records do not always accurately reflect time spent in each activity
resulting in CBP's inability to use all fees collected. Also under the
status quo CBP can spend directly against customs user fee funds while
it has to employ a reimbursable process to spend against immigration
and agriculture fee funds. For reimbursable fees, CBP must use
appropriated funds to cover expenses prior to reimbursement hindering
CBP's ability to adequately develop and execute budget plans. In
addition, CBP auditors must examine fee payments against three
different regulations and requirements. For our travel and
transportation industry, the problems with status quo have mostly to do
with the administrative burden of paying, tracking, reconciling and
accounting for three separate fees.
Based on the aforementioned issues, CBP concluded that to address
problems in the current fee structure congressional action may be
required to amend sections of the laws that authorized the funding of
customs, immigration, and agriculture inspection functions. As a
result, CBP developed an action plan to address the management,
coordination, and financial system problems GAO highlights in this
report.
Recognizing the need to reach agency consensus to advance the proposed
consolidation, CBP invited representatives from DHS and USDA to join a
User Fee Work Group and attend a meeting to discuss an initial proposal
developed by the CBP in consultation with other DHS organizations. The
meeting took place on January 12, 2006 in Washington, DC and was
attended by representatives from all invited organizations. Meeting
participants had the opportunity to react to CBP's initial proposal,
describe their particular problems, experiences, and concerns with the
authorities that govern the user fees, and share ideas to improve the
status quo. Also, CBP requested data on operational matters, necessary
changes to possibly implement a consolidated user fee, activity costs
and other issues from DHS and USDA organizations to make sure that a
revised proposal will address the areas of interest identified at the
meeting while ensuring that DHS and USDA's ability to properly fund
their activities is not undermined. At the present time, CBP is
revising its initial proposal in light of the data and input received
from the organizations that participated in the User Fee Work Group
meeting.
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this draft report and
we look forward to working with you on future homeland security issues.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Steven J. Pecinovsky:
Director:
Departmental GAO/OIG Liaison Office:
GAO Comments:
1. We continue to believe that the title of the report reflects our
conclusion that U.S. agriculture is vulnerable to the unintentional or
deliberate introduction of foreign pests and diseases as a result of
the management and coordination issues we raise in the report. Until
DHS adopts and tracks meaningful performance measures to assess the
effectiveness of the AQI program, DHS does not know the effectiveness
of the AQI program at performing its mission. Further, until DHS
implements a national risk-based staffing model for agriculture
specialists, it does not know whether adequate numbers of agriculture
specialists are staffed to ports of entry most vulnerable to the
introduction of foreign pests and disease.
2. We acknowledge, in the report, the steps that CBP has taken to
improve communication and information sharing between headquarters and
field offices. However, given the problems with information sharing
that we identified in our survey of agriculture specialists, we
continue to believe that additional actions are warranted to ensure
that urgent agriculture alerts and other information are transmitted
through the CBP chain of command to the agriculture specialists.
3. We acknowledge the operational challenges facing CBP as a result of
having to manage three different sets of user fees (i.e., agriculture,
customs, and immigration) to support inspection functions at U.S. ports
of entry. For example, we identified in the report some of the
timekeeping issues surrounding the need to appropriately separate time
spent on agriculture, customs, and immigration functions. We understand
that CBP concluded that to adequately address these challenges,
congressional action may be required to consolidate the different user
fees and their associated spending, fee setting, and costs recovery
authorities and exemptions.
[End of section]
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Daniel Bertoni, (202) 512-3841 or bertonid@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Maria Cristina Gobin (Assistant
Director), Terrance N. Horner Jr., Jeff Isaacs, Lynn Musser, Omari
Norman, Minette Richardson, Steve Rossman, Sidney Schwartz, Robyn
Trotter, and Diana Zinkl made key contributions to this report. Other
contributors included Nancy Crothers, Casey Keplinger, and Kim Raheb.
(360553):
FOOTNOTES
[1] GAO, Homeland Security: Much Is Being Done to Protect Agriculture
from a Terrorist Attack, but Important Challenges Remain, GAO-05-214
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 8, 2005).
[2] Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (2002). Section 421 of the Act
transferred agricultural inspection functions from USDA to DHS; section
403 transferred Customs functions to DHS; and section 441 transferred
the Border Patrol to DHS.
[3] This number included 317 specialist vacancies that were also
transferred.
[4] The Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection
Service has two priority missions: (1) detecting and preventing
terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States, and
(2) facilitating the orderly and efficient flow of legitimate trade and
travel. CBP's supporting missions include interdicting illegal drugs
and other contraband; apprehending individuals who are attempting to
enter the United States illegally; inspecting inbound and outbound
people, vehicles, and cargo; enforcing all laws of the U.S. at the
border; regulating and facilitating international trade; collecting
import duties; enforcing U.S. trade laws; and protecting U.S.
agricultural and economic interests from harmful pests and disease.
[5] H.R. Rep. No. 108-792, at 666 (2004).
[6] See Memorandum of Agreement Between the United States Department of
Homeland Security and the United States Department of Agriculture (DHS
Agreement Number: BTS-03-0001; USDA-APHIS Agreement Number: 03-1001-
0382-MU) at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq/moa-dhs.html (downloaded Apr.
24, 2006).
[7] Current as of February 2006.
[8] 21 U.S.C. § 136a(a)(1). These fees are to be credited to the
Department of Agriculture accounts that incur the costs associated with
the AQI services. The fees remain available until expended without
fiscal year limitation.
[9] In addition to the six agriculture user fees, CBP inspections are
supported by 32 other user fees that are administered by the
Departments of the Treasury and Justice. Each department's user fees
include separate rate structures and country exemptions.
[10] 64 Fed. Reg. 62089 (Nov. 16, 1999).
[11] 68 Fed. Reg. 3375 (Jan. 24, 2003).
[12] 69 Fed. Reg. 71660.
[13] We did not independently assess DHS's use of ATS for agricultural
inspections. CBP commented that agriculture specialists receive on-the-
job training in ATS. No classroom training has been provided, with the
exception of 3 classes in fiscal year 2005 for agriculture specialists
in maritime.
[14] The FSIS rule set contains criteria that identify (1) shipments
entering ports with no nearby inspection house, (2) shipments not
listing companies identified as approved foreign producers of beef and
poultry products, (3) shipments not listing companies identified as
approved foreign producers of certain other agricultural products, (4)
shipments from countries not authorized to export certain agricultural
products to the United States, (5) FSIS prior violators, and (6)
shipments from countries of interest to CBP.
[15] Imports of nonagricultural products such as tile may impact
agriculture because, according to APHIS, wood packing material used to
help transport tile has been a major source of pest interceptions.
[16] 31 U.S.C. §§ 1115-1116.
[17] CBP organizes individual ports of entry into 20 district field
offices that are composed of individual ports of entry. At the time of
the transfer, agriculture specialists (or vacancies) were assigned to
139 individual ports of entry.
[18] See GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
[19] APHIS commented that overtime is unpredictable and, therefore,
should not be considered by the staffing model. Rather, the staffing
model could have been adjusted to account for longer hours of coverage.
[20] During the course of our audit, CBP established a Web site for
agriculture specialists on its intranet that contains notices of
updates to agricultural inspection manuals. However, at the time of our
audit, CBP and APHIS still had not developed a formal system to notify
specialists directly of manual updates.
[21] The Secretary of Agriculture may prescribe and collect fees
sufficient to cover the cost of providing inspection services. In
addition, the law requires that the Secretary of Agriculture ensure
that the amount of the fees be commensurate with the costs of
agricultural quarantine and inspection services with respect to the
class of persons or entities paying the fees. 21 U.S.C. § 136a.
[22] APHIS recognized the need to maintain a reasonable reserve balance
in the AQI account to provide the program with a means to ensure
continuity of AQI services in cases of fluctuation in activity volumes,
bad debt, carrier insolvency, or other unforeseen events, such as those
of September 11, 2001, that could result in substantial cost increases
and lower-than-expected revenues.
[23] 69 Fed. Reg. 71660.
[24] According to CBP, APHIS consistently uses the same approach for
their costs, reporting its share of collections rather than actual
costs.
[25] Canadian Exemption Removal Rule (Docket No. 01-109-1).
[26] APHIS collects user fees for international air passengers,
commercial aircraft, and rail cars. CBP collects user fees for
commercial vessels, trucks, and truck decals, transfers the entire
collection amount to APHIS, and receives a portion back from APHIS
through the periodic transfers.
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