At the July 23, 2014, hearing of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation on “Implementing U.S. Policy in the Arctic” the committee chairman, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), opened the proceedings by holding up a graphic of the icebreaker fleets of the world—which depicts nearly 40 Russian icebreakers—and then commented on the “dismal state” of the U.S. icebreaker situation. The hearing background paper noted that the United States presently has only two working polar class icebreakers…