The idea of prize money has captured the imagination of many who ply the seas under the Coast Guard ensign. At one time, Revenue Cutter crews earned not only their pay, but also awards of cash and goods for the seizures they made.1 (Current Coast Guard members who learn of this history almost invariably wonder how such a practice was allowed to end.) Congress permanently abolished the practice in 1899 by a 2-to-1 margin.2 Whatever positive effects on recruiting and retention prize money might have today, it is unlikely ever to be allowed again. That does not mean, however, that the underlying concept cannot be reimagined, particularly if it might benefit the service and nation rather than individual service members.
The Coast Guard expends significant time and treasure performing enforcement work and pursuing civil penalty cases that wind up being referred to other federal agencies. These penalties can be substantial. For example, failing to comply with bridge regulations or negligent operation of a commercial vessel can cost an operator more than $25,000. Other violations, particularly the discharge of oil and other hazardous substances, can be assessed at nearly $250,000—per day.3
The service should, at a minimum, be permitted to recoup the costs it incurs making such cases. Even if the assessed penalties were far below statutory maximums, the cumulative effect would be that the Coast Guard would no longer be bound by its long-standing (if unofficial) motto, “Do more with less,” a phrase known ’round the Coast Guard as defining a service performing numerous missions on a very small budget.
If You Don’t Measure It . . .
The Coast Guard is the federal government’s lead maritime law enforcement agency, with search, seizure, and arrest authorities, and it also is a regulatory agency with rulemaking powers.4 Much of the enforcement work involves assessing administrative civil penalties for documented regulatory violations, the vast majority of which are mitigated through summary settlements or compliance programs. After preliminary investigation and evidence gathering, most suspected criminal violations are referred to other government agencies for further investigation and prosecution.5
Metrics for success in today’s Coast Guard center on the numbers that can be associated with each of its statutory missions. For example, the repatriation of more than 1,700 migrants interdicted at sea is substantive because it represents a complete mission. In contrast, documenting more than 9,000 marine safety violations and initiating some 6,000 enforcement actions as a result are less convincingly meaningful because they are incomplete, with no associated account of civil penalties assessed, mariner licenses suspended or revoked, or other substantive outcomes associated. With more than $555 million in service operating funds expended on marine safety, the questions must be asked: What substantive and directly correlated public benefits derive from such significant expense? Is such effort independently sustainable and fiscally responsible? If so, where does the money go?
The 2021 Combined Statement published by the U.S. Treasury shows miscellaneous receipts from Coast Guard–levied fines and penalties, but the complex data is difficult to decipher, and the penalties are simply deposited into the Treasury’s general fund. With a few exceptions, no money received by Treasury can be attributed to Coast Guard enforcement action.6
In addition, though the Coast Guard has seizure authority, it must rely on other government agencies to process the resulting forfeitures. When the service seizes a vessel or other property, its disposition is accomplished by an assisting government agency. Proceeds from these forfeitures are deposited into accounts such as the Treasury Forfeiture Fund administered by Customs and Border Protection, which gives the Coast Guard credit for high-profile seizures of drug-trafficking vessels in its annual reports and reimburses the service for some limited associated costs. But most of the proceeds are allocated to other agencies and federal programs that support state and local efforts.
. . . You Can’t Manage It
These practices have negatively affected Coast Guard enforcement activities. Civil penalties that do not reimburse the service for current operations or support future ones are processed with little attention, leading some cases to be closed because of delays that deny due process to suspects. Others are closed by violators showing evidence of compliance, but such evidence is often provided long after violations are first documented—then the violations often resume in the absence of decisive enforcement action.
Such negative outcomes are easy to see. Among 6,620 U.S. fishing vessel boardings in 2021, the Coast Guard documented only 180 fishery violations.7 These numbers suggest either an extraordinary commitment by domestic fishermen to comply with incredibly complex regulatory schemes or, perhaps, a lack of focus by the service. The disparity may result from the fact that NOAA exclusively administers the fishery regulations being violated and the associated forfeiture fund in which levied fines are deposited, despite the Coast Guard’s designation as the federal government’s primary at-sea enforcement agency for violations of those rules.8
A more effective incentive to protect natural resources can be found in the joint authority of the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency to assess penalties under the Clean Water Act. Fines levied by the service and the agency in 2021 contributed more than $73 million to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which reimburses those agencies for costs related to spill remediation. Give the Coast Guard ownership in assessing penalties and managing funds to support future activity and end-strength operational numbers and substantive outcomes follow.
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act authorizes the use of certain fines and penalties collected to fund future enforcement by the establishment of designated accounts.9 And the Abandoned Seafarer Fund, among other things, uses Coast Guard–assessed fines and penalties to ensure “the protection and fair treatment of seafarers” and provide for witnesses’ availability for enforcement proceedings.10
Most laws have no such allowances, however. As things stand, most Coast Guard–assessed penalties go to “America’s Checkbook”—the general fund that finances the federal government’s daily and long-term operations.
The Battle of the Budget
Reimagining prize money includes redefining the phrase. Where once it meant the rewards paid to sailors, Marines, and members of the Revenue Cutter Service for goods and ships seized, today it should be thought of as remuneration to the Coast Guard as a whole derived from the penalties it lawfully imposes.
The statute authorizing the Treasury Forfeiture Fund includes a section titled “Funds Available to United States Coast Guard.” That section requires the Treasury Secretary to “make available to the service from funds appropriated in excess of $10 million” the net money in the fund “derived from seizures made by the Coast Guard.”11
On its face, this makes it appear the Coast Guard benefits substantially from the fund, but this allocation comes with significant restrictions on authorized uses. Much of it supports the involvement of state and local law enforcement in joint operations with the Coast Guard, while the remainder pays for equipment for any official vessel, vehicle, or aircraft that assists in those functions.12
In government, an agency’s brand is roughly as valuable as its authorized annual appropriations, with one greatly affecting the other. Dramatic videos of successful narco sub interdictions positively impact the Coast Guard’s brand, and the service capitalizes on such moments on Capitol Hill. Yet the service must battle for every penny, including the funds needed to enable its boarding teams to engage in such heroics.
It also must battle for every dollar allocated to it by third-party administered funds. A 2020 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General report recorded that nearly 99 percent of all forfeitures were made through administrative processes resulting from or in conjunction with civil penalty action.13 The Coast Guard has the authority to assess civil penalties for far more violations than any other DHS component but receives less benefit from doing so. A dedicated fund would reduce the service’s reliance on its brand to fight for funding, at the same time improving the brand’s perception.
Without such a fund, the resources the Coast Guard can commit to enforcement activities suffer. With it, the service would gain the capacity to assess and collect penalties, manage and allocate them, and store and process seized and forfeited property to help pay the costs incurred to perform these and continued enforcement actions.
Eyes on the Prize
Search and rescue should always remain free: No Coast Guardsman requires a financial incentive to perform this mission because all understand the possibility of saving human life warrants a maximum effort unrestricted by and unconcerned with cost.
Enforcement of most laws and treaties, however, sometimes requires an incentive—a prize, so to speak. This can encourage leaders and service members to embrace the idea that they should risk their lives jumping gunwales and confronting suspects, often for only minor regulatory violations that seem to have little effect on anyone other than those on board the involved vessel. Instead of money paid to individuals, reimagined prizes would become substantive outcomes to the service for enforcement actions, enhancing motivation for the work and ensuring adequate funding for assets, staffing, training, and support commensurate with the workload.
All professional lawmen recognize that simply documenting a violation is the first of many steps in enforcing the law. The assessment of a civil penalty, the seizure and forfeiture of property, or the successful prosecution of a suspect is the endgame.
Deferral of enforcement actions to other agencies, program managers, and violation case processors focusing on compliance without penalty even for serious violations has eroded internal support for the Coast Guard’s law enforcement mission. Boarding officers sometimes seem content with embarking vessels simply to record the data needed to boost meaningless metrics for mission types and then step off with a wave to those on board. Such actions display little zeal for enforcing the law and bringing order to an environment arguably as unruly as the open ranges of the Old West.
Likewise, assessment teams from the Coast Guard’s Maritime Law Enforcement Academy visit operational units annually. They evaluate strict requirements for physical techniques and mock boardings, but they do not always assess a unit’s civil penalty and criminal case outcomes, which only exacerbates the larger problem and frustrates those committed to the mission from a sense of duty.
A variety of tools and trends have steadily reduced the demand for Coast Guard maritime search and rescue. In 1985, the service responded to 60,775 cases; in 2019, there were 15,257.14 This welcome improvement allows the Coast Guard to focus on other missions that will continue proving the service’s value to the public Law enforcement is a noble mission that benefits public safety and the Treasury whose necessity is evidenced by the founding of the Revenue Marine by the First Congress. The mission requires assertiveness from motivated officers and cutter crews.
Historically, the Revenue Marine employed prize money to encourage both. Today, prize money paid to individuals is a relic of an era long past, but the underlying notion—that rewards should accrue to those who assume the risks—could increase the meaning and purpose felt by boarding teams.
Coast Guard leaders and Congress should act to provide the service direct forfeiture authority to ensure the resources obtained from Coast Guard–levied fines, civil penalties, and forfeitures are managed by and for the service. This will offset the financial, material, and human costs the Coast Guard incurs, enabling and enhancing continued operations and enforcement of the more than 150 rules only the Coast Guard can enforce.15
The Coast Guard is charged with performing 11 statutory missions, requiring constant balancing and reprioritization. Some generate rewards in the form of intense pride and professional satisfaction, such as for successful rescue missions. Others are more tangible—fines that fund oil spill cleanup. But those that cost the service the most while generating the least return are those most likely to hold lower positions on the list, especially when partner agencies receive those rewards while the Coast Guard invests considerable time and treasure in detecting and documenting enforcement actions.
The Coast Guard performs the work, incurs the costs, and takes the risks—it should be awarded the prize.
1. LT Worth Ross, USRM, “Our Coast Guard: A Brief History of the United States Revenue Marine Service,” Harpers New Monthly Magazine 73, no. 438 (November 1886).
3. 33 U.S. Code § 1321: “Oil and Hazardous Substance Liability.”
4. “Commercial Regulations & Standards (CG-5PS),”
5. The Judge Advocate General of the United States Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard 2023 Annual Report to the American Bar Association; and 33 CFR Part 1, Subpart 1.07: “Enforcement; Civil and Criminal Penalty Proceedings.”
6. U.S. Treasury, “2021 Combined Statement: Table A, Receipts by Source Categories.”
7. U.S. Coast Guard Budget Overview Posture Statement 2022 (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Coast Guard, 2023).
8. U.S. Senate, 112th Congress, “How Is NOAA Managing Funds to Protect the Domestic Fishing Industry?” hearing before the Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security Subcommittee, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2011.
9. U.S. Senate, 112th Congress, “How Is NOAA Managing Funds?”
10. Craig H. Allen Sr., “United States Establishes Fund for Abandoned Seafarers.”
11. 31 U.S. Code § 9705: “Department of the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.”
12. “State Grants: History.”
13. Joseph V. Cuffari, “DHS Inconsistently Implemented Administrative Forfeiture Authorities under CAFRA,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, 27 August 2020.
14. U.S. Coast Guard, Annual Performance Report Fiscal Year 2019 (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Coast Guard, 2020); and Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue Statistics, by Fiscal Year,”
15. 81 FR 42987: “Civil Monetary Penalty Adjustments for Inflation,” Federal Register, 1 July 2016.