The Coast Guard could see $14.6 billion in new cutters as part of a massive supplemental that could almost double the service’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, according to the text of the reconciliation bill reviewed by USNI News.
Included in the Republican-led funding proposal is money for almost 30 new cutters ranging in size from the 154-foot Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter to the 460-foot Polar Security Cutter, according to a source familiar with the proposed buy.
Those include:
- Three or more Arctic Security Cutters and an unspecified number of Great Lakes icebreakers for $5.03 billion.
- Two Polar Security Cutters and advanced procurement for $4.3 billion.
- Eight Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutters for $4.3 billion.
- Up to 15 Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters for $1 billion.
The supplemental is more than the Fiscal Year 2025 Coast Guard budget request of $13.8 billion and more than 10 times the cutter budget of $1 billion in current budget proposal. The new cutters are part of an overall $22.5 billion supplemental to the Coast Guard’s bottom line that also includes $3 billon for new aircraft and billions more for shoreside infrastructure, according to the bill. If ratified, the Coast Guard has 90 days to submit a proposal with timelines for deliveries.
Boosting the Coast Guard has been a White House priority with President Donald Trump calling for as many as 40 new icebreakers. In addition to the funding for the existing Polar Security Cutter and the new Arctic Security Cutter, the bill included language that would open the option for cutters to be built at foreign yards. Under U.S. law, the Coast Guard needs a presidential “national interest” waiver to build in a foreign yard.
USNI News reported that both Canadian and Finnish yards responded to an April request for information from the Coast Guard for the Arctic Security Cutter work.
Trump has said in public statements he was interested in building some icebreakers in Finland, including during a meeting last month with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
“President Stubb and I look forward to strengthening the partnership between the United States and Finland, and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed icebreakers for the U.S.,” he wrote on March 29.
Specifics for what amounts as a supplemental for the service comes as the Coast Guard is in the middle of what acting commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday has called a “death spiral.”
“America is demanding more of the Coast Guard today, we are less ready than at any other time in our history since World War II. We have been on a readiness spiral, personnel and material,” Lunday said last month at the Sea Air Space symposium.
He used an example of how the service strips parts from National Security Cutters to keep the fleet moving.
“When a National Security Cutter pulls into port, we do a controlled parts exchange, which is a fancy term for cannibalizing our readiness. No ship gets underway without stripping another for parts,” he said.
“You can only cannibalize your readiness and eat your own readiness for so long in that downward death spiral and that’s where we’re at.”
The service’s Force Design 2030 recapitalization plan is due to Department of Homeland Security leaders this week, two sources familiar with the effort told USNI News.
“We’re excited about that future,” Lunday said at Sea Air Space.
“We are preparing to accelerate our ship sustainment and our ship recapitalization and modernization efforts.”
