Sen. Sullivan Chairs Subcommittee Hearing with Coast Guard Commandant

Historic investment secured in WFTCA will fund icebreakers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yesterday, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries, convened a hearing examining the Coast Guard's presence in the Arctic, where he received confirmation from Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Kevin Lunday that Alaska could receive up to four of the eleven Arctic Security Cutters announced as part of the U.S.-Finland Icebreaker Agreement and the ICE Pact.

Funding for at least three Arctic Security Cutters, and the infrastructure to support them, was appropriated in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act (WFTCA), the largest investment in U.S. Coast Guard history-$25 billion, which passed last year through budget reconciliation.

Sen. Sullivan's remarks as prepared for delivered:

"Good morning everybody. Earlier this month, the men and women of the United States Coast Guard carried out a number of incredible rescue missions, saving nine people from a commercial fishing vessel that ran aground on Saint George Island. Closer to home, a larger scale heroic number of rescues followed after Typhoon Halong in Western Alaska, where some of our smaller communities were hit by this massive typhoon.

"Our Coast Guard, working with the National Guard, rescued 51 Alaskans in the middle of the night during a typhoon. These missions are a powerful reminder that the Coast Guard's work is not abstract. It is immediate, dangerous, and often the difference between life and death for Americans. Today's hearing-- and I am very honored to have our newly confirmed Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday-- is about making sure the historic investments Congress made in the United States Coast Guard translate into real operational capability, where it matters most, when it matters most.

"Just to remind folks, and I try to remind everybody in Alaska about this, last year during the budget reconciliation bill-- what we now refer to as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act--the Congress of the United States, working with the Trump administration, made the biggest investment in the Coast Guard in American history, $25 billion.

"Now, I like to say that the Coast Guard has a great culture similar to the Marine Corps, with an ethos of, hey, we can do more with less. Don't worry, it's okay. We know we have 50 year old helicopters and cutters and ice breakers, but we can do more with less.

"Well, it's time, in my view, for the Coast Guard to do more with more. And that's what we're able to do in this budget reconciliation bill. The numbers the Coast Guard needs are historic in that $25 billion: 16 new icebreakers-- by the way, we have two. One is broken and the Russians have 54. It's time to close that Icebreaker gap.

"Almost 4.5 billion to repair and replace shoreside facilities and aging infrastructure. 22 new Coast Guard cutters, including OPCs and FRCs. 40 new helicopters, mostly H60s. 6 new C-130J aircraft. This is, as I mentioned, the biggest investment in Coast Guard history. And I think everybody, including members who didn't vote for the bill, thought that it was time to do that for the Coast Guard. I think had it been just that bill, you guys probably would have voted for it, it's a great bipartisan achievement. And we are very, very excited about it.

"The Coast Guard is being asked to do more across every theater: counter drug missions in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, complex law enforcement actions against sanctioned Dark Fleet tankers, sustained operations in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, search and rescue, combating illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing, what we call IUU fishing. At the same time, they must manage operational risk while transitioning from platforms that, as I mentioned, are decades beyond their intended service lives.

"Nowhere is the need for this investment clearer and more prominent than in the Arctic. Just months ago, I was with Admiral Lunday, where, for the first time ever, we commissioned and started to homeport an American icebreaker where the ice is: in Alaska. The U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker, The Storis, designated to be homeported in Juneau, Alaska, represents a generational investment in the Coast Guard and our national security.

It also marks a long overdue shift in how the United States approaches the Arctic not as a distant afterthought, but as a core strategic domain. I'd like to show a slide here. As the only Arctic state, we focus on what's going on in the Arctic a lot, and there is a lot going on in the Arctic. Our adversaries, particularly Russia and China, are all over the place in America's Arctic, in our EEZ, in our ADIZ.

"Flip that slide over. This gives you the number of incursions from Russian strategic bombers and Chinese Navy assets, and very alarmingly, the green is joint Russian Chinese operations in America's Arctic. Strategic Bomber Task Forces-Joint-and Navy Task forces in EEZ-joint-in green. That's joint Russian, Chinese. The Chinese are off the coast of Alaska all summer. There was a really important Wall Street Journal article about this just a couple weeks ago.

"I'd like to submit it for the record. Without objection. It's called "China's Push to Master the Arctic Ocean Opens an Alarming Shortcut to the U.S.". They weren't doing research. They were spying on us, and everybody knows it. So the Arctic is another key place where the Coast Guard, with its new significant investment dollars, is going to be making much more important investments to protect the northern domain of America.

"I'd like to again commend Admiral Lunday for his great work on this issue as well. But it's just one area that the Coast Guard's global demands have to be met. So what we want to do in this hearing is not just focus on the Arctic. I'll do that significantly, but I'm sure my colleagues want to have a better sense of the Coast Guard's force posture, lay down global deployments, workforce decisions, and importantly, how the Coast Guard sees its ability to rapidly deploy the investments that Congress and the Trump administration made this past summer.

"Again, the most significant investments in Coast Guard history. It's about time. We are very fortunate to have with us Admiral Kevin Lunday, Commandant of the Coast Guard, who was confirmed at the end of last year at a pivotal moment for the service. Admiral, we appreciate your leadership, your willingness to discuss candidly how the Coast Guard is manning operational risks, global deployments, acquisition, and execution as these historic investments begin to come online."

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