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Coast Guard icebreaker role ‘clarified’ Senate passes legislation to block dismantlement of old ships, and to analyze risks of transporting Canadian oil sands production Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
The U.S. Senate has passed legislation with major provisions pertaining to icebreakers, a hot topic recently for Alaska officials.
The bill, H.R. 2838, authorizes annual funding levels for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Senate passed the bill on Sept. 22.
In a section titled “Clarification of Coast Guard ice operations mission,” the bill says the Coast Guard “shall be the sole supplier of icebreaking services ... to each Federal agency that requires icebreaking services.”
The bill contains additional icebreaker language, plus other provisions of interest to the oil and gas industry.
One provision would require the Coast Guard to study the feasibility and potential of establishing a deepwater port in the Arctic to protect and advance U.S. interests in the region, said a press release from Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska. Begich chairs the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard.
Another provision would require the Coast Guard to conduct a risk analysis of transporting Canadian oil sands production through West Coast waters.
Icebreaker debate Icebreakers have been a high-profile topic for Begich and other Alaska political leaders, who decry the depleted state of the nation’s icebreaker fleet.
Recently, the Coast Guard has had only one operational icebreaker available, a medium duty vessel called the Healy.
The Coast Guard has two other ships capable of breaking heavier ice, the Polar Star and the Polar Sea. 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 the Polar Star back into service in 2013 after a major overhaul. The Coast Guard had planned to scrap the Polar Sea, but agreed to postpone the action through 2012 at the behest of Begich and Senate colleagues Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Just how to improve the nation’s icebreaking capability has been much debated. Building icebreakers is extraordinarily expensive, but trying to extend the life of old ships also is costly.
The Senate-passed bill has language forbidding the Coast Guard from dismantling the Polar Star or Polar Sea, or expending any funds “for any expenses directly or indirectly associated with the decommissioning of either of the vessels.”
This would be until new heavy icebreakers are acquired for Coast Guard operation, the bill says.
Oil sands study A section of the Coast Guard bill requires a risk analysis of transporting Canadian oil sands oil.
“The Commandant of the Coast Guard shall assess the increased vessel traffic in the Salish Sea (including the Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, Haro Strait, Rosario Strait, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca), that may occur from the transport of Canadian oil sands oil,” the bill says.
The analysis is to consider the extent to which tanker or barge traffic might increase due to Canadian oil sands development, and whether transport of Canadian oil is likely to require navigation through U.S. territorial waters.
The study also would consider the spill response capability in shared waters of the United States and Canada, and “whether oil extracted from oil sands has different properties from other types of oil, including toxicity and other properties, which may require different maritime cleanup technologies.”
The bill now goes to a conference committee to reconcile differences with the House-passed version, Begich’s office said.
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