Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft on Wednesday said that for the Coast Guard to sustain its recapitalization plans and operations the service needs a $2 billion annual acquisition budget that grows modestly overtime to keep pace with inflation.
The Coast Guard needs a “predictable, reliable” acquisition budget “and within that we need 5 percent annual growth to our operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts,” Zukunft told reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. Inflation will clip 2 to 3 percent from that, but “at 5 percent or so it puts you on a moderate but positive glide slope so you can execute, so you can build the force,” he said.
In March, Zukunft said that the Coast Guard is funded at “flyweight” status but punches like a “middleweight,” adding that the service’s budget needs to reflect its contributions.
A $2 billion annual acquisition budget might be a stretch. The Coast Guard received a $2 billion appropriation in FY ’16 for its acquisition account because Congress added $640 million to the budget for a ninth National Security Cutter (NSC), one more than the original program of record.
In FY ’17 the former Obama administration sought just $1.1 billion for Coast Guard acquisitions, and while a final budget hasn’t been signed off, House and Senate appropriators have both agreed to providing $1.3 billion. The Senate bill includes long-lead funding for a tenth NSC but the House bill doesn’t. The FY ’15 acquisition budget was $1.2 billion.
There is plenty of interest in Congress, and even in the Coast Guard, for 12 NSCs, which would equal the number of Hamilton-class high-endurance cutters the service is retiring. One former Coast Guard official told Defense Daily recently that with Coast Guard operations at a high pace and the scope of its missions expanding, the service could use 12 NSCs.
Zukunft said that last year there were 580 events that the Coast Guard had intelligence on regarding illicit drug trafficking at sea but couldn’t respond to due to a lack of assets.
“It’s a capacity issue,” he said.
The Coast Guard has a full plate of acquisition programs, with an emphasis on new vessels to replace its ageing fleet of patrol boats, medium and high-endurance cutters. The service has ordered 38 of a planned 58 154-foot Fast Response Cutter patrol boats, nine 418-foot NSCs, and has contracted for the detailed design with an option for the first of a planned buy of 25 medium-endurance Offshore Patrol Cutters, the Coast Guard’s top acquisition priority.
The Coast Guard also hopes to buy six polar ice breakers, three heavy, and three medium, and has contracts with five companies on design studies for the first heavy icebreaker, which the service hopes to have delivered in 2023. House and Senate appropriators have recommended $150 million in the Navy’s FY ’17 budget in long-lead funding for the first icebreaker and initial plans call for the Navy to fund construction of this ship, which is expected to cost around $1 billion.
Beyond the first vessel, it’s unclear what the funding strategy will be for polar icebreakers, Zukunft said.
Zukunft said the Coast Guard is doing a great job keeping its major acquisition programs on cost and schedule by holding requirements steady and using fixed-price contracts.
In addition to recapitalizing its seagoing vessels, Zukunft eventually wants to acquire new boats that patrol the nation’s inland waterways. The Coast Guard also needs to address maintenance needs of its shore-based infrastructure. The service is also looking to add small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to its NSC fleet and Zukunft has been highlighting the need for long-range, high-endurance UAS systems to operate in the transit zones between South and Central America where illegal drugs are shipped in bulk.
The Coast Guard’s O&M budget the past five years has been below the funding floors established by the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA). Zukunft said “it is not sustainable for us to continue to operate below the BCA floor and actually negative growth in real dollars adjusted for inflation to be able to meet all the requirements that we must.”
With regard to funding, Zukunft said his “greatest concern” at the moment is if Congress can’t agree to an appropriations budget for the current fiscal year, FY ’17. The government is currently operating under a continuing resolution, which maintains funding levels at FY ’16 levels and mostly prohibits the start of new programs.
The CR expires on April 28 and could be extended for a short while or for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30.
“If we don’t have an appropriation in 2017, I will have to shut down operations,” Zukunft said.