US Coast Guard's Top Priority: Offshore Patrol Cutter
The U.S. Coast Guard’s “number one priority is the offshore patrol cutter,” the service’s commandant told the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee Thursday, reports U.S. Naval Institute. The service will be looking again at its force-mix analysis, taking into account the money appropriated for a ninth national security cutter for this fiscal year, Adm. Paul Zukunft said. He said he had “the utmost confidence” the Coast Guard will down-select to one shipbuilder this year for the offshore patrol cutter. The budget request for Fiscal Year 2017 includes $100 million for long-lead procurement for the offshore patrol cutter program. A service fact sheet said the 25 offshore patrol cutters and 58 fast response cutters will replace 90 cutters now in the fleet.
U.S. Snub on Cutter Funds Seen as Threat
The Obama administration’s failure to budget $1.6 billion for two of the Coast Guard’s flagship vessels is drawing criticism from U.S. lawmakers, who contend that the service’s missions will be threatened. The Department of Homeland Security’s proposal for the fiscal year, beginning October1, requests $683 million to fund only the sixth of eight planned National Security Cutters, made by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. The agency, which oversees the Coast Guard, didn’t seek funding for the remaining two cutters for fiscal years 2014 to 2017. The 418-foot-long cutters are needed to replace an aging fleet of vessels, many of which are more than 40 years old and expensive to maintain, according to the service.
AAPA Lauds House Appropriations Subcommittee
Responding to the inclusion of $400 million for port security grants in the mark-up of the fiscal 2008 Homeland Security Appropriations bill last Friday, American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) President and CEO Kurt Nagle praised the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and its chairman, Rep. David Price (D-NC), and ranking member, Rep. Hal Rogers (R- KY). "As handlers of most of America's vast international cargo trade, public ports are often our first line of defense against terrorism," said Mr. Nagle. Nagle noted that, while funding for port security has been on the increase in the years following 9/11, this year Congress is making port security a priority.
