Federal legislation sent to the president for his signature directs the U.S. Coast Guard to spend $150 million to purchase a used, privately owned ice-breaking vessel to help cover operational needs until a fleet of new Coast Guard icebreakers can be built.
The legislation, the annual Natural Defense Authorization Act, also includes a provision to acquire land in Juneau to build facilities for the estimated 190 Coast Guard personnel assigned to the ship, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said during a conference call with reporters to discuss Alaska-related provisions of the $858 billion package.
The House passed the bipartisan bill in a 350-80 vote on Dec. 8, and the Senate followed with an 83-11 vote on Dec. 15, sending the bill to President Joe Biden for his signature into law, which is expected.
The $150 million allocation is for what the legislative language calls an “available icebreaker.” It is a near-certain completion to a years-long effort to purchase the now 10-year-old Aiviq icebreaker from Edison Chouest Offshore, a Louisiana-based marine transportation and services business. The 360-foot-long Aiviq was built for Shell’s Arctic waters exploration in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas, which ended in 2012 without finding commercial quantities of oil.
The Aiviq suffered engine failure and a broken towline buckle as it was pulling the floating drill rig out of Alaska waters after Shell closed down its work for the year.
The acquisition has been controversial because Coast Guard leaders have said the Aiviq is “not suitable for military service without substantial refit,” and lawmakers at the forefront of seeking the purchase — including the late U.S. Rep. Don Young — received significant campaign contributions from Edison Chouest Offshore.
Sullivan, who received a $27,000 contribution from the company, said the $150 million authorization includes money for upgrading the vessel to Coast Guard standards.
Edison Chouest reports the Aiviq is capable of breaking ice up to 3 feet thick; the Coast Guard medium icebreaker Healy can break through ice three times as thick by backing up and ramming the ice.
Homeporting the Aiviq in Juneau would provide a significant economic boost to the community.
“It’s going to take a few more years, but this will probably be about 190 Coast Guard members, 400 dependents, several hundred million (dollars) more in infrastructure, a homeport and icebreaker in the great state of Alaska,” Sullivan told reporters.
Juneau was selected by the Coast Guard as the preferred homeport after evaluating a number of Alaska sites in terms of overall capability for accommodating the ship, its personnel and their dependents, Sullivan said.
Juneau Port Director Carl Uchytil, whose 27 years in the Coast Guard included many years as a captain aboard icebreakers in the Arctic, expressed enthusiasm about Juneau as a homeport and – without knowing specific details of the Aiviq – shared Sullivan’s sentiment that a vessel classified as an icebreaker would be beneficial until more capable ships are available.
Two older Coast Guard icebreakers are stationed in Seattle. Sullivan and his Alaska colleague, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have long sought funding for new Arctic-capable icebreakers. Congress approved funding two years ago for three heavy icebreakers, with the first new ship under construction in a Mississippi shipyard, with delivery scheduled for 2025.
The Aiviq has a lower classification than the Coast Guard medium icebreaker Healy, which visited Juneau in early November after a four-month Arctic deployment before returning to Seattle. The privately owned vessel is classified as ABS A3, meaning it can operate independently in the Arctic offshore shelf for half of the year and in the stable pack ice of the Central Arctic on “short-term, short-distance entries during July through December.”
Among the provisions in this month’s legislation is language to ensure that the icebreaker is capable of collecting climate data, which the military has called vital due to climate change posing a broad range of challenges in the Arctic and other regions. Sullivan, after repeatedly emphasizing the need for boosting U.S. military presence in the Arctic due to growing Russian and Chinese activity there, also pointed to language “redirecting the military in the purpose of its job” as an accomplishment in the legislation.
The senator reaffirmed his position that the military shouldn’t focus so much on climate change impacts to its operations, such as sea level rise and extreme heat/cold/storms that could affect training and operations. “Senator Sullivan believes the military needs to focus on their core mission of lethality and winning America’s wars, not climate change,” Ben Dietderich, Sullivan’s press secretary, wrote in an email.
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