A Senate Committee on Thursday plans to mark up legislation that would authorize $2 billion in annual acquisition funding for the Coast Guard in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 and give the service the authority to acquire the last several of its National Security Cutters (NSCs) through a multi-year contract.
The $2 billion in annual acquisition funding is in line with what Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft has said is the necessary baseline to sustain the service’s ongoing recapitalization efforts (Defense Daily, April 12).
The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2017 (S. 1129) would provide just under $2 billion in acquisition funding in FY ’18 and just over $2 billion in FY ’19. Congress appropriated nearly $1.4 billion for Coast Guard acquisition spending in FY ’17.
The bill was introduced on Tuesday by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. The bill’s co-sponsors are Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), chairman and ranking member respectively of the full committee.
The authorization for the multi-year contract for the NSC would cover the 10th, 11th and 12th vessels, which “will allow the Coast Guard to reduce the price of follow-on vessels and give shipyards greater predictability, stabilizing workforces,” the committee said. Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] is the shipbuilder for the NSC, constructing the 418-foot vessels at its facilities in Pascagoula, Miss.
The Coast Guard’s original program of record was for eight NSCs to replace 12 retiring Hamilton-class endurance cutters. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R), who represents Mississippi, successfully got Congress to appropriate funding for a ninth NSC a year ago and then for long-lead materials for the 10th cutter earlier this month.
Cochran made it part of his re-election campaign two years ago to fund the construction of 12 NSCs.
Overall, the 125-page bill would provide the Coast Guard with $9.2 billion in funding in FY ’18 and $9.6 billion in FY ’19. The previous Coast Guard authorization bill provided $9.1 billion for the service in FY ’16 and FY ’17.
Another provision in the bill calls for the Coast Guard to review the assets and personnel required to ensure safety and security in the Arctic. The Coast Guard is conducting studies for a program to buy new heavy polar icebreakers.