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Coast Guard plans new polar icebreaker Five-year capital plan includes $860 million; Begich calls it ‘just a start,’ while Murkowski questions administration’s commitment Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
For years, Alaska political leaders have pushed the federal government to shore up the nation’s meager icebreaking fleet. Now it appears they’re beginning to make some headway.
The U.S. Coast Guard, in its five-year capital investment plan, has penciled in $860 million for a new polar icebreaker.
Alaska’s senators were pleased, if not entirely satisfied, with the news.
“One new heavy icebreaker is just a start, but it’s a step in the right direction for the sorely needed icebreakers we must have as a new era of development unfolds in Alaska’s Arctic,” said Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat. “I’m very pleased the administration has listened to me and recognizes these types of investments are critical for the Coast Guard to do its job monitoring drilling activity in the offshore waters of the Arctic and more.”
The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
At a March 8 hearing to review the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget request for Homeland Security, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski expressed concern that the department provides only $8 million for an icebreaker — a small fraction of the ship’s full cost.
Barebones fleet The Coast Guard icebreakers are considered important as offshore oil and gas drilling commences as soon as this summer in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, and as shipping and other activity increases with diminishing ice cover.
At the moment, however, the nation’s icebreaking capacity is very low, with only one medium duty vessel available, the 420-foot Healy.
The Coast Guard has two other ships capable of breaking heavier ice, the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. But these vessels are more than 30 years old and are currently laid up in Seattle with major maintenance needs.
The current plan is to bring one of these ships, the Polar Star, back into service after a major overhaul.
Because they must be so sturdy, icebreakers are very costly to build. One study provided to Congress in 2011 suggested the Coast Guard ideally needs six to 10 icebreakers to fulfill its mission.
Funding increments News of the Coast Guard’s five-year plan for one new polar icebreaker came at a March 7 hearing of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard. Begich chairs the subcommittee, which reviewed the Coast Guard’s fiscal 2013 budget request.
The five-year plan includes $8 million for the icebreaker in 2013, $120 million in 2014, $380 million in 2015, $270 million in 2016 and $82 million in 2017.
“This, of course, is subject to future appropriations but represents the administration’s acquisition priorities and represents a clear shift in thinking,” one Senate aide told Petroleum News. “After hammering on them about icebreakers the past three years, they finally get it.”
The funding timeline does not mean an icebreaker will be ready in five years.
The Coast Guard plan notes the $860 million is for production of a polar icebreaker “within the next 10 years.”
The plan says the 2013 funding “initiates survey and design for a new polar icebreaker,” and will be used to develop certain planning documents.
Commitment level questioned In the Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on March 8, Murkowski questioned Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, expressing concern that the administration is requesting only $8 million initially for an icebreaker.
“You and I both know that $8 million does not get you an icebreaker,” Murkowski told Napolitano. “I recognize that the request is $860 million over the next five years.”
The senator then asked: “Has icebreaking capacity and our need to move forward aggressively taken a higher priority within this administration?”
Napolitano replied that, with the onset of drilling and other activity off northern Alaska, “we believe that the country needs another icebreaker.”
The Polar Star is in drydock now and will be out in a year, but in the interim the government will have no icebreaking capability when the Healy goes in for maintenance, Napolitano said. That alone illustrates why a third icebreaker is needed, she said.
But it’s really up to Congress to determine how to fund a large priority asset, Napolitano said.
“Finding a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, in our budget, means you would have to take it out of operations and front-line personnel,” she said. “So this is a real question for the appropriations committee.”
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