Homeland Security: Management and Coordination Problems Increase
the Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and
Disease (19-MAY-06, GAO-06-644).
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.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-06-644
ACCNO: A54361
TITLE: Homeland Security: Management and Coordination Problems
Increase the Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests
and Disease
DATE: 05/19/2006
SUBJECT: Agricultural pests
Agricultural policies
Agricultural programs
Federal agency reorganization
Inspection
Interagency relations
Performance measures
Program evaluation
Program management
User fees
USDA Agricultural Quarantine Inspection
Program
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GAO-06-644
* Report to Congressional Requesters
* May 2006
* HOMELAND SECURITY
* Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability
of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease
* Contents
* Results in Brief
* Background
* CBP and APHIS Have Taken Steps to Strengthen the Agricultural
Quarantine Inspection Program
* CBP and APHIS Have Expanded Training on Agriculture Issues
* CBP and APHIS Have Taken Steps to Improve Targeting of
Agricultural Inspections
* CBP and APHIS Have Established a Review Process for
Assessing Port Compliance with Agricultural Inspection
Policy
* CBP Has Established New Agriculture Liaisons to Advise
Regional Directors
* Management and Coordination Problems May Leave U.S. Agriculture
Vulnerable to Foreign Pests and Disease
* CBP Lacks Adequate Performance Measures for Agricultural
Quarantine Inspections
* CBP Made Progress Hiring Agriculture Specialists but Still
Lacks a Risk-Based Staffing Model
* CBP Has Not Used Key Data to Evaluate Effectiveness of AQI
Program
* Information Sharing and Coordination between CBP and APHIS
Have Been Problematic
* Agriculture Canine Program Has Deteriorated
* Financial Management Issues at CBP and APHIS Adversely Affect the
AQI Program
* User Fees Have Not Been Sufficient to Cover AQI Program
Costs
* CBP Could Not Provide APHIS with the Actual Cost Information
* APHIS Did Not Always Make Regular Transfers of AQI Funds to
CBP
* Conclusions
* Recommendations for Executive Action
* Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
* Scope and Methodology
* Results of GAO Survey of CBP Agricultural Specialists
* Comments from the Department of Agriculture
* GAO Comments
* Comments from the Department of Homeland Security
* GAO Comments
* GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
Report to Congressional Requesters
May 2006
HOMELAND SECURITY
Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability of U.S.
Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease
Contents
Tables
Figures
May 19, 2006Letter
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.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).2
Beginning in March 2003, more than 1,800 frontline agriculture
specialists3 who had formerly reported to APHIS became CBP employees, as
CBP incorporated the protection of U.S. agriculture into its primary
antiterrorism mission.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.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.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.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
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.
[This page left intentionally blank]
Figure 2: Example of Primary and Secondary Inspection Procedures at
Airport
aAfter 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.
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.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.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 2002.10 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.11
On December 9, 2004, APHIS published an interim rule to raise user fees,
effective January 1, 2005.12
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.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 2006.14
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.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.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.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.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.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
District field Average Average Differencea Statistical
office inspection rate inspection rate significanceb
before (October after (March
1999-February 2003-September
2003) 2005)
Atlanta 9.7 8.8 -0.9 No
Baltimore 18.2 10.0 -8.2 Yes
Boston 30.9 13.0 -17.9 Yes
Buffalo 0.1 0.5 0.3 Yes
Chicago 18.0 18.5 0.5 No
Detroit 3.1 2.9 -0.2 No
El Paso 2.9 4.4 1.5 Yes
Houston 13.2 12.1 -1.1 No
Laredo 7.7 8.8 1.1 Yes
Los Angeles 12.5 10.4 -2.1 No
Miami 35.8 23.1 -12.7 Yes
New Orleans 37.6 41.8 4.3 No
New York 12.0 11.8 -0.2 No
Preclearancec 7.8 3.4 -4.4 Yes
Portland 13.0 12.6 -0.4 No
San Diego 12.6 16.3 3.6 Yes
San Francisco 40.4 19.0 -21.4 Yes
San Juan 62.4 57.6 -4.8 No
Seattle 2.3 3.1 0.8 Yes
Tampa 19.6 30.7 11.1 Yes
Tucson 2.6 4.0 1.4 Yes
Source: GAO calculations of APHIS's Work Accomplishment Data System,
fiscal years 2000-2005.
aBecause of rounding, values in the difference column may not equal the
difference between rounded inspection rates.
bStatistical 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.
cPreclearance 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.
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
District field Average Average Differencea Statistical
office interception rate interception significanceb
before (October rate after
1999-February (March
2003) 2003-September
2005)
Atlanta 10.7 11.5 0.8 No
Baltimore 7.6 10.4 2.8 Yes
Boston 3.9 12.4 8.5 Yes
Buffalo 15.4 30.2 14.8 No
Chicago 6.8 5.6 -1.3 No
Detroit 7.7 20.7 13.0 Yes
El Paso 9.4 5.7 -3.7 Yes
Houston 7.9 8.4 0.4 No
Laredo 4.4 3.9 -0.5 No
Los Angeles 7.4 8.7 1.3 No
Miami 5.3 5.8 0.4 No
New Orleans 5.9 3.5 -2.4 Yes
New York 18.1 10.2 -7.9 Yes
Preclearancec 10.1 24.4 14.2 Yes
Portland 9.6 14.9 5.3 Yes
San Diego 1.3 1.4 0.2 No
San Francisco 10.5 10.6 0.1 No
San Juan 6.1 3.5 -2.5 Yes
Seattle 30.1 46.5 16.4 Yes
Tampa 8.3 3.0 -5.2 Yes
Tucson 9.0 7.0 -2.0 Yes
Source: GAO calculations of APHIS's Work Accomplishment Data System,
fiscal years 2000-2005.
aBecause of rounding, values in the difference column may not equal the
difference between rounded interception rates.
bStatistical 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.
cPreclearance 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.
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.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.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
Fiscal year
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
User-fee collections $255,141 $208,688 $227,823 $256,104 $331,636
Total program costsa 222,707 250,810 279,150 355,521 357,403
APHIS costs 222,707 250,810 194,030 133,000 134,995
CBP costs b b 85,120c 222,521 222,408
Total program costs in ($32,434) $42,122 $51,327 $99,417 $25,767
excess of user-fee
collections
Sources: APHIS and CBP.
Notes: Negative values shown in parentheses.
aProgram costs as reported by the agencies.
bNot applicable because CBP did not incur program costs until March 1,
2003.
cCBP costs for fiscal year 2003 began on March 1, 2003, when AQI
inspections were transferred to CBP.
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.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
2010.23 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.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.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.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 Agreed upon quarterly transfer Actual transfers
schedule
Fiscal year 2004
October 2003 $48,500 $0
November 2003 0 0
December 2003 0 0
January 2004 48,500 0
February 2004 0 0
March 2004 0 0
April 2004 48,500 118,000
May 2004 0 0
June 2004 0 29,500
July 2004 48,500 0
August 2004 0 29,500
September 2004 0 17,000
Total, fiscal year 2004 $194,000 $194,000
Fiscal year 2005
October 2004 $48,814 $0
November 2004 0 32,820
December 2004 0 0
January 2005 48,814 0
February 2005 0 65,640
March 2005 0 0
April 2005 48,814 32,820
Month Agreed upon quarterly transfer Actual transfers
schedule
May 2005 0 0
June 2005 0 32,820
July 2005 48,814 0
August 2005 0 43,900
September 2005 0 0
Total, fiscal year 2005 $195,257a $208,000
Sources: APHIS and CBP budget offices.
aTotals may not be exact due to rounding.
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
aThe six AQI user fees are assessed on international air passengers,
commercial aircraft, commercial vessels, commercial trucks, commercial
truck decals, and commercial railroad cars.
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
o 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;
o 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;
o 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;
o 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
o 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 http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-3841 or [email protected] . 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.
Daniel Bertoni Acting Director, Natural Resources and Environment
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.
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 Percent
Agriculture Specialist 80
Agriculture Specialist/ Canine Handler 5
Supervisory Agriculture Specialist 13
Other 2
n=626
2. For which of the following pathways did you conduct agricultural
inspections during the past year? (Please check all that apply.)
Pathway Percent
Did not conduct inspections 1
Aircraft 55
Air passenger 73
Air cargo 55
Maritime ship 34
Maritime passenger 18
Maritime cargo 32
Pedestrian 18
Vehicles 23
Truck 22
Bus 20
USPS mail 14
Express mail 16
Inland inspection 5
Rail cargo 17
Rail passenger 2
Other 5
n=624
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 Percent
1960-1969 1
1970-1979 5
1980-1989 22
1990-1999 29
2000-2003 44
n=442
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 Mean number of weeks Number of respondents
Agriculture inspections 16 443
Not agriculture inspections 3 446
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 Percent
Definitely yes 58
Probably yes 32
Uncertain 1
Probably not 4
Definitely not 3
No answer 1
n=448
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 Percent
Many more 10
Somewhat more 12
About the same 15
Somewhat fewer 24
Many fewer 35
Not applicable 5
No answer 0
n=448
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 Percent
Many more 5
Somewhat more 7
About the same 17
Somewhat fewer 19
Many fewer 41
Not applicable 9
No answer 1
n=448
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 Regularly Not Regularly Not Number of
activity performed as regularly performed regularly respondents
PPQ Officer performed as PPQ performed
but not now as PPQ Officer and as PPQ
as a CBP Officer but CBP Officer and
Agriculture now as a Agriculture CBP
Specialist CBP Specialist Agriculture
Agriculture Specialist
(percent) Specialist (percent)
(percent)
(percent)
Boarding 59 3 32 5 405
aircraft
Boarding 40 4 27 30 350
ships
Compliance 43 3 22 32 363
agreements
Compliance 52 3 29 16 381
checks
Disinfection 49 1 41 9 380
Fumigation 72 0 1 27 368
Roving 36 9 39 17 349
Safeguarding 40 3 53 4 404
Other 57 14 25 4 164
Part 3: Information from CBP Agriculture Specialists Hired After March 1,
2003.
10. When did you begin working as a CBP Agriculture Specialist?
Year Percent
2003 3
2004 30
2005 66
n=173
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 Began in 2003 or 2004 (mean number Began in 2005
of weeks)
(mean number of
weeks)
Agriculture inspections 14a 12a
Not agriculture 6 3
inspections
n=170 aThe sampling margins of error of these estimates do not exceed plus
or minus 20 percent of the value of the estimates.
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 Percent
Definitely yes 36
Probably yes 39
Uncertain 11
Probably not 8
Definitely not 5
No answer 2
n=174
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 Mean
Agriculture inspections and associated activities 62
Customs and Immigration inspections and associated activities 14
Work not related to inspections (e.g., administrative work, training) 21
Work other than that listed above 3a
n=615
aThe sampling margins of error of this estimate is plus or minus 22
percent of the value of the estimate.
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 Percent
Yes 9
No 81
No answer 10
n=626
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
Supplies Response
Always Most of Some of Never or Do not No answer
the time the time almost use
never
Collection vials for 43 29 18 6 3 1
pest samples
Forms for submitting 52 25 15 4 3 1
pest samples
Garbage bags for 43 28 17 8 4 1
intercepted material
Latex gloves 48 29 18 3 2 1
n=626
16. Do you have easy access to USDA regulatory manuals during inspections?
(Please check one in each row.)
Percent
Type of manual Response
Always Most of Some of Never or Not No
the time the almost applicable answer
time never
Online USDA 50 23 16 9 2 1
regulatory manuals
Current (updated) 20 19 18 32 7 4
printed USDA
regulatory manuals
n=626
17. Do you have enough time to look for pests in agriculture materials
intercepted from passengers?
Response Percent
Always 10
Most of the time 27
Some of the time 31
Never or almost never 15
Not applicable 15
No answer 2
n=626
18. How easy or difficult is it for you to get samples to a pest
identifier?
Response Percent
Very easy 29
Somewhat easy 31
Neither easy nor difficult 14
Somewhat difficult 12
Very difficult 6
Not applicable 4
No answer 3
n=626
19. When you send a sample to a pest identifier, about how long does it
usually take to get the results?
Percent
Length of time Type of sample
Urgent Nonurgent
One day or less 41 5
2 to 3 days 24 9
4 days to 1 week 6 8
One week to 1 month 3 25
More than 1 month 4 36
Not applicable 11 6
No answer 12 13
n=626
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 Method of
information delivery
E-mail E-mail Muster Other type of Not Number of
from CBP from (percent) communication received respondents
(percent) another on a
agency (percent) regular
(percent) basis
(percent)
Urgent 71 26 43 11 12 604
agriculture
alerts
Pest alerts 65 31 35 10 13 599
Regulatory 53 33 23 11 20 590
changes
Updated 40 36 7 9 29 524
pages for
regulatory
manual
21. Is the information delivered to you in a timely manner? (Please check
one in each row.)
Percent
Type of information Response
Always Most of Some of Never or Do not No
the time the time almost receive answer
never
Urgent agriculture 21 41 25 7 3 2
alerts
Pest alerts 19 42 25 8 4 2
Agriculture regulatory 17 38 26 12 5 2
changes
Updated pages for 18 31 17 18 14 2
agriculture regulatory
manual
n=626
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
Database Hours per month
Zero 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 Greater than No answer
25
AQIM 39 27 11 3 3 1 6 11
EAN 47 22 8 1 2 0 2 18
PPQ280 43 24 7 2 3 1 5 16
WADS 42 24 7 6 2 2 4 13
n=626
Part 5: Questions for Canine Handlers
24. Are the following resources readily available to you? (Please check
one in each row.)
Percent
Resources Response
Always Usually Sometimes Never Not No
applicable answer
Funding for veterinary 45 33 13 0 1 8
visits
Funding for supplies 6 21 58 7 0 8
(for example, training
aids)
Funding for kennel 60 19 6 0 6 9
space
Space for storage of 31 22 33 4 0 9
supplies and practice
materials
Refrigerator(s) for 52 21 15 3 0 9
perishable training
materials
n=62
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 Percent
Yes 65
No 18
Uncertain 4
No answer 12
n=62
26. Does CBP management allow you enough time each month to schedule
training with your dog?
Response Percent
Always 51
Most of the time 28
Some of the time 12
Never or almost never 1
Not applicable 0
No answer 8
n=62
27. During the past year, about how frequently have you been directed to
perform duties outside your primary mission as a Canine Handler?
Frequency Percent
Every day 22
Several times a week 24
Once a week 3
Two to three times a month 21
Once a month 4
Less than once a month 7
Never or almost never 7
No answer 11
n=62
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
Other agency personnel Response
Excellent Good Fair Poor No basis No answer
to judge
Agriculture specialists at 8 28 23 29 11 1
other ports
CBP officers at your port 9 41 31 19 0 0
CBP supervisors 8 30 34 26 0 1
CBP chiefs and port directors 7 20 33 37 2 1
USDA PPQ and APHIS 10 31 27 26 5 1
USDA Veterinary Services 12 29 26 18 11 3
USDA Food Safety and 3 15 17 26 33 6
Inspection Services
USDA meat inspectors 0 9 9 23 39 20
Fish and Wildlife Services 11 34 21 20 10 3
Centers for Disease Control 2 9 12 23 48 6
Food and Drug Administration 4 17 19 21 32 7
Public Health Service 3 11 13 24 41 7
n=626
29. In your experience, does your port have enough Agriculture Specialists
to carry out agriculture duties?
Response Percent
Definitely yes 12
Probably yes 16
Uncertain 8
Probably not 21
Definitely not 42
No answer 1
n=626
30. How prepared do you feel for your duties as an Agriculture Specialist?
Response Percent
Very well prepared 53
Somewhat prepared 33
Neither prepared or unprepared 5
Somewhat unprepared 4
Very unprepared 3
No answer 2
n=626
31. In general, do you feel that your work as a CBP Agriculture Specialist
is respected by CBP Officers and Management?
Percent
Other CBP Response
personnel Definitely Probably Uncertain Probably Definitely No
yes yes not not answer
CBP Officers 7 18 14 26 35 0
CBP Management 6 14 15 22 42 1
n=626
Appendix III Comments from the Department of Agriculture
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.
Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Homeland Security
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.
Appendix GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
Daniel Bertoni, (202) 512-3841 or [email protected]
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)
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
[email protected].
Highlights of GAO-06-644, a report to congressional requesters
May 2006
HOMELAND SECURITY
Management and Coordination Problems Increase the Vulnerability of U.S.
Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease
transparent illustrator graphic
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 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.
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.
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