By Emelie Rutherford
President Barack Obama is poised to sign into law long-delayed policy legislation for the Coast Guard that authorizes more than $10 billion in spending and mandates a raft of acquisition reforms.
The House granted final approval to the Coast Guard Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 on Sept. 30 and sent it to the White House. Previous versions of the bill passed the House in October 2009 and the Senate in May 2010. It is the first Coast Guard authorization legislation Congress has passed since 2006.
Since 2006, the service decided to phase out Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS)–a partnership between Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Lockheed Martin [LMT]–as lead systems integrator (LSI) of Deepwater, a once-troubled $24 billion, 25-year project to modernize ships, aircraft, and communication systems.
The newly passed bill would officially prohibit the Coast Guard from using an LSI, except in some instances where the LSI would be phased out by the end of 2012.
The legislation also would legally create a Coast Guard chief acquisition office and an acquisition directorate. It calls for the service to conduct a mission-needs analysis that identifies capability gaps and affordability assessments before large acquisitions are initiated. The bill would mandate testing-and-evaluation programs and independent life- cycle cost estimates for large procurements. And, in line with the Pentagon’s Nunn-McCurdy rules regarding over-budget programs, the Coast Guard legislation would require the service to report to Congress about cost and schedule breaches with major acquisition efforts.
Lawmakers who have examined Deepwater and Coast Guard acquisitions over the past four years hailed the FY ’10 and FY ’11 bill’s final passage.
“One of the biggest issues the Coast Guard faces right now is ensuring capable management of its acquisition process,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Coast Guard subcommittee, which held multiple Deepwater-related hearings. “I believe the reforms the service has already implemented as a result of the hearings have been forceful responses to the challenges the service has faced….Provisions in the Coast Guard Authorization will build on and strengthen these reforms.”
The legislation contains direction on specific shipbuilding matters as well.
For example, it states that before the Coast Guard begins work to strengthen the hulls of the first two National Security Cutters (NSC)–which were among the Deepwater vessels found to have flaws–the service must give Congress an assessment of the proposed hull-strengthening design.
The legislation also says the Coast Guard must have all future cutters, except for NSCs, classed by the American Bureau of Shipbuilding before final acceptance.
For polar icebreakers, the bill would mandate a comparative cost-benefit analysis of rebuilding the existing fleet or buying new vessels that would examine whether the icebreakers should be operated by the Coast Guard or National Science Foundation. The analysis would be initiated within 90 days by a non-governmental third party other than the National Academy of Sciences. The newly passed legislation also prods the Coast Guard to report to Congress the results of the service’s ongoing High-Latitude Study; the study is assessing polar icebreaking requirements for missions including search and rescue, marine pollution response and prevention, fisheries enforcement, and maritime commerce.
The Coast Guard bill also calls on the service’s commandant to working closely with the defense secretary “for support in contracting and management of Coast Guard acquisition programs.”
“The commandant shall also seek opportunities to make use of Department of Defense contracts, and contracts of other appropriate agencies, to obtain the best possible price for assets acquired for the Coast Guard,” the legislation awaiting Obama’s signature says.