It's Not Just Icebreakers- the Coast Guard Has No Shipbuilding Plan.
Once again, the GAO calls out the U.S. Coast Guard in Congressional Testimony
Hello, and welcome to summer. The end of the school year and the beginning of summer has been a busy time in the Rybski household. This past week, life settled back down to a relatively steady routine (at least for the short term) enabling me to catch up on the latest news concerning one of my favorite topics- icebreakers and ice capable vessels.
A reader pointed me to a little-noticed Congressional hearing that took place on June 12th. Entitled Review of the Recapitalization of the United States Coast Guard, this hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure provided little new information about the U.S. Coast Guard’s (USCG) Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program. However, it did give insight into how the USCG fails to properly manage its procurement programs. The big picture is just as baffling and frustrating as the PSC program.
The hearing featured Admiral Thomas and Ms. Shelby Oakley, both of whom participated in a previous hearing that I covered:
In fact, part of the title of that article- the quote “If you want it bad, you get it bad”- came from Ms. Oakley’s testimony concerning the Polar Security Cutter program.
The Good
The hearing offered no real ‘good news’ concerning the USCG’s procurement programs. However, the Government Accountability Office continued to make solid recommendations on how the USCG can improve its procurement processes. For that reason, I’ll consider the GAO’s continued airing of the USCG’s mismanagement to be- at least partially- in the ‘Good’ category.
The USCG has no long term plan
Those of you who don’t follow the USCG closely may be surprised by this (I know that I was): The USCG does not have a long-term shipbuilding plan. Sure, it has a five year Capital Investment Plan. But there is nothing equivalent to the U.S. Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan. That means that the USCG has nothing in writing demonstrating how it intends to reach its required size to accomplish its missions. For some time I’ve been pointing to the gap between the current number of USCG polar icebreakers (2) and the required number (8 or 9). Even if the PSC plan goes well, there is only a plan to build three ships while retiring two. The USCG has no idea how much it would cost or when it might possibly get to eight or nine. This problem goes beyond icebreakers, as noted by the GAO.
The GAO called out the USCG on this a decade ago. From Ms. Oakely’s written testimony (emphasis mine):
To help the Coast Guard improve the long-term outlook of its portfolio, in 2014, we recommended that the Coast Guard develop a 20-year fleet modernization plan that identified all acquisitions needed to maintain its current level of service and the fiscal resources necessary to build the identified assets. The Coast Guard agreed with the recommendation. Subsequently, in 2016, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2015 directed the Coast Guard to complete a 20- year Long-term Major Acquisitions Plan, to be submitted to congressional committees as part of a report on the status of the Coast Guard’s major acquisition programs. In November 2017, Coast Guard officials told us they were developing a 20-year long-term plan that specifically focused on their highest priority recapitalization and sustainment efforts to meet the intent of the 2016 congressional mandate.
In June 2021, however, as part of our recommendation follow-up procedures, Coast Guard officials told us they did not yet have an approved 20-year plan. According to officials, the plan must be approved by relevant agencies, including OMB and DHS. In 2021, we closed the recommendation as not implemented, since we had no evidence that this plan was imminent. As of June 2024, the Coast Guard has yet to submit a 20-year plan to Congress. We continue to believe that a 20-year plan identifying all acquisitions needed to maintain the current level of service and the fiscal resources needed to build the identified assets would help decision-makers take informed steps to improve the long-term outlook of the Coast Guard’s portfolio of major acquisitions.
The GAO then points to the USCG’s 2023 analysis of its cutter fleet:
These (the ships looked at) include enforcement and security cutters, seagoing and coastal aids to navigation cutters, inland aids to navigation cutters, polar icebreaking cutters, and domestic ice operations cutters. The Coast Guard noted that the analysis was not constrained by any projected budgetary levels. As such, the fleet mix results did not mirror the Coast Guard’s current program of record, which is reflected in the Capital Investment Plan. For example, the study showed that the Coast Guard’s desired fleet level includes more cutters than the Coast Guard is currently planning to acquire. The extent that this analysis will be incorporated into annual budget requests for the Coast Guard is unclear.
So the required number of vessels across the board does not match the USCG’s program of record, and there is no plan to suggest the funding levels and timing of future programs that will get the USCG to those ship levels.
Ms. Oakley’s testimony suggests that DHS and OMB are in the way- so they need to get out of the way.
Compounding this, the USCG has been getting additional Congressional funding added directly and through funding of its unfunded requirements list. As a result, the USCG’s budget submission in no way matches the reality of its requirements. A long-term shipbuilding plan would show just how detrimental this process is, and allow Congress and the Executive branch to work towards some solution, or to at least acknowledge the trade-offs hidden behind the annual budget submissions.
The current practice is no way to run any organization.
During the hearing, Ms. Oakley made two sound recommendations in response to a question of what Congress could do to help the USCG:
First, the Congress should really enforce what it’s asked the Coast Guard to do: Develop a 20-year fleet modernization plan so that you all have the ammunition to be able to advocate for additional resources for the Coast Guatrd to be able to meet its increasing mission needs. So that’s one thing. The Coast Guard has yet to develop that type of plan. The Navy develops one every year so I don’t see that there should be any reason why the Coast Guard couldn’t follow suit to provide ya’ll with that information.
The second thing I would say is that the Congress should demand the Coast Guard to push forward with disciplined programs. And when I say disciplined programs I mean following those practices that I was talking about from the commercial ship buyers and builders. Not making decision to proceed with construction with a design that’s not even remotely finished. To be able to support informed decisions in that regard and really push the Coast Guard to think about what it needs and how it’s going to effectively prioritize and assess the risks associated with its future portfolio. And it can do that in that long term plan or it can do that in the CIP that we talked about earlier that Capital Investment Plan so those are just some quick things that I think you all could do.
In answer to a different question, Ms. Oakley has a recommendation for the USCG: learn from commercial shipbuilders!
The Coast Guard should really look towards the practices that we’ve identified by going out and looking at commercial ship builders and buyers and how they go about getting ships done on time and on budget and on a predictable cycle. And I don’t mean in 10 years, I mean done designed to launch in less than four years sometimes for very complex ships. There’s a reason why they can do that, because they take disciplined approaches, they put in place the right kind of tools, they have the right kinds of expertise to be able to oversee these programs and execute these programs and that’s where I direct both the Coast Guard and the Navy to begin looking to improve their outcomes.
Disciplined programs. In other words, stop making design changes late in the game. Since starting this column I’ve heard several anecdotes about USCG and USN shipbuilding that reflect very poorly on the services. These anecdotes concern design specification changes of limited utility made late in the design process, resulting in significant redesign (and additional cost and delay) in order to try and meet the new requirement. It seems that the additional cost, potential delay, or even the laws of physics are no obstacle to some requirements added by my colleagues in uniform. This is where that disciplined approach is required.
The Bad
Too much positive spin
The written testimony of Admiral Thomas is all positive- as is all such testimony of Uniformed Officers before Congress. It doesn’t reference ongoing challenges or problems, include any detailed analysis of what could have been done better in the past, or even include a or include a realistic discussion of what the USCG needs for success. I didn’t even hear him address directly the lack of a long-term shipbuilding plan. This is not the fault of Admiral Thomas- I recall from my limited experience concerning Congressional testimony that prepared remarks are closely reviewed and vetted to make sure they do not contradict the Executive Branch. With so much else in DC, this leads to unhelpful spin. Sometimes the hard facts come out in the question and answer periods, where asking the personal opinion of the testifying official draws out a surprisingly forthright answer.
Admiral Thomas did state that the baseline funding for the USCG’s Procurement, Construction, and Improvement (PCI) is inadequate. But this wasn’t new- the Commandant of the Coast Guard stated in May that the USCG really needs at least $3 Billion in PCI per year. Note that the USCG’s average budget request from FY20-FY24 was about half of that amount. (This is where a 20-year plan would come in handy, showing where that money would go!)
Still, it would be refreshing if these hearings started without executive branch spin consisting of rosy assumptions and best-case scenarios.
USCG shipbuilding is absent from current National Maritime Strategy/National Shipbuilding Plan Discussions
I’ve heard from and read articles by many people who are involved in this plan, so I was surprised to hear this during Ms. Oakley’s testimony:
Well, in general supporting the U.S. Shipbuilding industrial base is critical given what both the Coast Guard and the Navy are trying to do in terms of building up their fleets to meet their increasing mission demands. One thing that I would like to comment on that is that I see this as needing to be a whole of government approach to supporting that industrial base and in preparing for this hearing I’m reviewing the Navy’s 30-year fleet shipbuilding plan and it talks a lot about industrial base and supporting the Naval industrial base and the commercial industrial base but the Coast Guard isn’t mentioned in there at all. And so I think that’s one thing that the Navy and the Coast Guard need to think about is how they can kind of approach and attack his holistically because there is a lot of money right now being thrown at the shipbuilding industrial base through the Navy and through the Department of Defense in particular and so I think that the Coast Guard will benefit from that. But I’d like the Coast Guard to be a little bit more strategic in directing those benefits to things that will support them in the long run.
The USCG needs to be involved in this process today. If it is OMB and DHS again holding them back, they need to get out of the way.
The Ugly
Lack of Knowledge About Icebreakers and Modern Icebreaking
Admiral Thomas:
The Polar Icebreaker is not like any commercial vessel ever built and it’s not like any vessel built in the United States ever. So it’s a complex vessel and it’s a complex…. We’re currently working with the shipyard. They’ve put in what’s called a request for equitable adjustment to kind of right size the contract. That combined with the work we’re doing to understand their over target budget, over target schedule..(that) analysis I think will allow us to report to this committee a good estimate in both cost and schedule by this fall.
The ugly bit here is his rather ignorant statement that the polar icebreaker (the PSC) is not like any commercial vessel ever built. Let me remind all of you of the French cruise ship, Le Commandant Charcot- a PC2 icebreaker that went from design start to the North Pole in less than six years.
I’ve met many USCG Officers involved in icebreaking over the years. They make up a relatively small portion of the USCG, and those outside of the community are typically unfamiliar with it. In other words, it is a bit of a backwater community like Mine Warfare within the U.S. Navy. It would really add some credibility if senior U.S. Coast Guard Officers- especially those involved in procuring icebreakers or testifying before Congress about the subject- were conversant in modern icebreaking technology and recent successful icebreaker programs. Rather, it seems that most view icebreaking as it was in the 1970s- pushing a slightly rounded brick-shaped hull over the top of the ice sheet using powerful engines. SMH.
No new PSC news
So we still don’t know how much we think the PSCs are going to cost nor when we can expect the ships to be built. This is not a surprise, as Admiral Thomas testified back in May that we could expect an update this autumn.
No discussion on how to mitigate a lack of domestic icebreaker expertise
We don’t have the expertise domestically… but no mention of foreign assistance
The hearing included this example of continued problem identification without a discussion of how to actually address the issue in a timeframe that matters. Yes, we need to produce more workers and engineers. But what should we do until that future day when someone else solves that problem? (emphasis mine):
Congressman Ezell: This committee has heard that one of the challenges in building a PSC is the support of the local industrial base that is finding enough workers. What can we do to try to help?.... We hear that all over the place we’re having problems finding people what can we do to help that.
ADM Thomas: I think there’s two things that we need to do. One is we need to invest in our shipyards and we need to understand that the Polar Security Cutter program will result in ships that our nation needs but it will also result in the shipyard that our nation needs. And the second is we need to really invest in STEM education. We are finding that ther engineers, the scientists, the technicians that are required to put a ship that complex together both in terms of design and construction just don’t exist in our nation. So we need to focus on that.
I think we have some allies who could help. Maybe we can actually discuss allied involvement. I’d like to know if the USCG or Bollinger is actually reaching out for help. It would have been great for Admiral Thomas to have mentioned any efforts or thoughts in this matter, as this is one area where Congress could probably help.
The Other
There was one new top brought up during the hearing. See this exchange:
Mr. Babin: I understand that the construction contracts for the polar program and the great lakes icebreaker require all United States laws to be followed. Has the question of propulsion arrangement in patent rights been resolved in the case of the Polar program and if not why not and how do you propose to resolve that question so that lawsuits and further delays do not occur?
Adm Thomas: To date there has been no official raising of (aton?) issues associated with the polar icebreaker so we haven’t taken any actions to resolve those because they’re they just haven’t made any claims.
I’m not sure that Admiral Thomas said “Aton’ issues; I listened to it several times and could not resolve what was said better than YouTube’s auto transcript.
But this is the first time that I’ve heard there might be some patent rights issues involved with the Polar Security Cutter. The mention of ‘propulsion arrangement’ may be telling.
This patent concerning the arrangement of propulsion units for an icebreaker seems very similar to the design being used for the PSC- that is, using two steerable propulsion units (like Azipods) and one stationary propeller located in the same end of the vessel.
Maybe we will hear more about patent rights in the future.
Concluding Thoughts:
While there wasn’t much new related to the PSC in this hearing, testimony from the GAO’s Ms. Shelby Oakley highlighted just how broken the USCG’s procurement process is today. Without a long term plan that includes all of the ships and other infrastructure needed to conduct its required missions, it is impossible to chart how the USCG can get there. Trade-offs between competing missions are hidden in the current year budget and subject to risk as program costs increase. It is beyond imaginable that the USCG has not produced a 20-year shipbuilding strategy in the past ten years. Whatever is holding this back- whether it be internal to the USCG or something between the USCG, OMB, and DHS- it needs to be sorted out quickly. Without such a plan, the USCG will continue to struggle year-to-year as it fails to sustain the infrastructure needed to accomplish a growing number of missions.
The patent issue is publicly new, but apparently is not affecting the PSC program at this time. But it is just one more issue in a problem plagued program, one that could impact it at a later date. Perhaps it is not really a concern and someone out there can provide additional information about the matter.
Thanks for reading. If you like what you’ve seen, press the heart and subscribe to make sure that you never miss an update. Consider sharing with a friend or fifteen; it takes me some time to research and write these articles, so I’m happy to see them spread far and wide. It’s important to keep this conversation going.
Until next time.
All the Best,
PGR
More F-35 for Finland, paid for with icebreakers?