Free Internet Press News

Managers of the U.S. Coast Guard's $24b fleet-overhaul program appeared to cover up a Navy engineering report that highlighted design flaws in a new cutter under scrutiny by government investigators, according to reports by the Free Internet Press. U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-California), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the December 2005 report included bottom-line warnings in red ink on a pair of briefing slides that concluded the national security cutter, as it is known, would not last the required 30 years. The warnings were deleted in a copy of the report given by Coast Guard officials to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) auditors and altered in an edited version included in a wider briefing on the $1 billion-a-year fleet-replacement program…