Hearings to examine assessing Coast Guard force laydown on the heels of historic investment.
Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing
2026-01-29
Source: Congress.gov
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Good morning, everybody. Earlier this month, the men and women of the United States Coast Guard carried out a number of incredible rescue missions, saving nine people from a commercial fishing vessel that ran aground on St. George Island. Closer to home, a larger scale heroic A number of rescues followed a typhoon halong in western Alaska, where some of our smaller communities were hit by this massive typhoon. Our Coast Guard, working with the National Guard, rescued 51 Alaskans in the middle of the night during a typhoon. These missions are a powerful reminder that the Coast Guard's work is not abstract. It is immediate, dangerous and often difference between life and death. For Americans. Today's hearing and I am very honored to have our newly confirmed common on the United States Coast Guard. Um, Admiral Kevin Lundy. is about making sure the historic investments Congress made in the United States Coast Guard translate into real operational capability where it matters most, when it matters most. Just to remind folks, and I try to remind everybody in Alaska about this, last year during the budget reconciliation bill, what we now refer to as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, The Congress of the United States, working with the Trump administration, made the biggest investment in the Coast Guard in American history. $25 billion. Now, I like to say the Coast Guard has a great culture, similar to the Marine Corps, in my view, an ethos of, hey, we can do more with less.
Don't worry. It's okay. We know we have 50 year old helicopters and cutters and icebreakers, but we can do more with less. Well, it's time. In my view of the Coast Guard to do more with more. And that's what we're able to do in this budget reconciliation bill. The numbers which the Coast Guard needs are historic.
In that 25 billion, 16 new icebreakers. By the way, we have two. One is broken, and the Russians have 54. It's time to close that icebreaker gap. Almost 4.5 billion to repair, replace shoreside facilities and aging infrastructure. 22 new Coast Guard cutters, including OPCs and FRCs. 40 new Helicopters, most mostly age 66 new C 130 J aircraft. This is, as I mentioned, the biggest investment. In Coast Guard history, and I think everybody, including members who didn't vote for the bill. Thought that it was time to do that for the Coast Guard. So, well, I mean, I think had it been just that bill, you guys probably would have voted for it. It's a great bipartisan achievement. And we are very, very excited about it. The Coast Guard is being asked to do more across every theater. Counter-drug missions in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Complex law enforcement actions against sanctioned dark fleet tankers. sustained operations in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, search and rescue, combating illegal, unreported, unregulated phishing, what we call IUU phishing. At the same time, it must manage operational risk while transitioning from platforms that, as I mentioned, are decades beyond their intended service lives. Nowhere is the need for this investment clearer and more prominent than in the Arctic. Just months ago, I was with Admiral Lundy. For the first time ever, we commissioned and started to homeport an American icebreaker. Where are the ices? In Alaska. The U.S. Coast Guard, the Storis, designated to be homeported in Juneau, Alaska,
Represents a general generational investment in the Coast Guard in our national security. It also marks a long overdue shift in how the United States approaches the Arctic. Not as a distant afterthought, but as a core strategic domain.
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