The Coast Guard is requesting $216 million in fiscal year 2025 for two fast response cutters (FRCs) as part of a plan to bolster the service’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
The current FRC program of record is 65 vessels, all of which are on order with shipbuilder Bollinger Shipyards. The two additional ships would bring the total FRC buy to 67 vessels, two fewer than contained in the Coast Guard’s unfunded priorities list released in 2023 that sought $400 million for the 154-foot vessels that typically operate for three to five days at a time in littoral missions.
House appropriators in their version of the FY ’24 funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) included four FRCs, but Senate appropriators did not recommend funding the program. DHS is currently operating under a continuing resolution for FY ’24 and the Coast Guard’s final appropriation has not been determined.
Budget documents released on Monday say that the Coast Guard’s Indo-Pacific Strategy calls for up to six FRCs.
The Coast Guard operates three FRCs in the western Pacific from Guam.
The FY ’25 budget request also includes $60.2 million in the services’ operations and support(O&S) account to complement the additional FRCs for Indo-Pacific expansion with soft power initiatives.
The roughly $276 million overall being sought for the expansion strategy supports increased presence, including C5I enhancements for the vessels, a Coast Guard Maritime Transportation System Assessment Team to help partners in the region with ports and waterways safety assessments and other studies, and a Maritime Engagement Team to help partners with law enforcement and emergency management training and exercises.
Coast Guard budget documents say the new investments “will begin to transform the Coast Guard from an organization which currently provides episodic presence, in the Indo-Pacific, to be more persistent and visible, strengthening coordination with partner nations and bolstering regional security.”
Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan last fall said that her service was in discussions to boost its presence in the Indo-Pacific with more funding. Without the additional funding, she said the Coast Guard could not spread itself more thinly in the region (Defense Daily, Oct., 24, 2023).
The Coast Guard’s overall discretionary budget request is $12.3 billion, which includes $10.5 billion for O&S, 2 percent above the FY ’24 request, and $1.6 billion for procurement and construction, level with a year ago. The service has lobbied for a 3 to 5 percent annual increase in its O&S account to keep pace with costly repairs to legacy assets and for shore infrastructure needs, and at one time had hoped for at least $2 billion annually in acquisition funding to recapitalize its aging ships and aircraft more quickly.
Other funding requests for the Coast Guard include:
- $530 million to acquire the seventh offshore patrol cutter (OPCs) and long-lead time material for the eighth of the medium-endurance cutters. The first four OPCs are being built by Eastern Shipbuilding Group and Austal USA is under contract for ships five to 15. The service plans to buy 25 OPCs;
- $36.9 million on O&S funds to crew the first commercially available commercial polar icebreaker and, and fund related shore-side personnel. The Coast Guard is counting on Congress to provide $150 million in FY ’24 to initiate acquisition of the commercially-available icebreaker;
- No funding is being requested for the polar security cutter (PSC), which Bollinger is under contract to build. Funding has already been provided for the first two of three PSCs, but the program is at least three years behind schedule and construction of the first ship has yet to begin.