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Coast Guard budget, Deepwater bills marked up

House lawmakers were considering two bills this week that, if passed, would tighten management of the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program yet also would authorize the project’s full funding.

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee on Tuesday marked up the bills — the Coast Guard authorization bill, HR 2830, and the Deepwater Program Reform bill, HR 2722.

The broad Coast Guard authorization bill would approve the Coast Guard’s fiscal 2008 spending at roughly $8.3 billion, including $5.96 billion for operating expenses and slightly more than $1 billion for acquisition, construction and improvements.

Of the ACI account, $837 million would go to the Deepwater modernization program while $44.5 million would help improve shore facilities and aids to navigation.

The administration requested $8.7 billion for the service for fiscal 2008, including $837 million for Deepwater.

During the markup, subcommittee members entertained the Deepwater reform bill first, approving the measure by voice vote.

The bill’s main provision prohibits the Coast Guard from using a private company as the lead systems integrator on Deepwater. As originally written, the bill would have required the Coast Guard to rid itself of current systems integrator Integrated Coast Guard Systems — a Lockheed Martin-Northrop Grumman joint venture — within 24 months after the bill became law.

But under an amendment offered by Rep. Steve Latourette, R-Ohio, the Coast Guard would have until October 2011, or until the Homeland Security secretary certifies that the service is capable of being the systems integrator, to take over the task.

The panel approved Latourette’s amendment.

“[Rep. John] Mica and I have both been concerned that prohibiting a private lead system integrator in too short a time may have the unintended consequence of making Deepwater’s problems even worse,” Latourette said.

HR 2722 further restricts Deepwater procurements by requiring the Coast Guard to use open competition for each asset purchased under the program. It also would require the service to furnish a life-cycle cost estimate to Congress, designate contract officers for each class of cutter and aircraft in the program and provide reports and updates to congressional overseers.

Some of the provisions in HR 2722, including hiring a senior civilian executive to head contracting programs, already are being addressed by the service.

“The legislation takes significant new steps to ... strengthen the management of the $24 billion Deepwater program,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.

The Coast Guard authorization bill is the first for the service since late 2005; Congress failed to pass a fiscal 2007 authorization act for the service, leaving it without authorizing legislation since September 2006.

The authorization bill allows an active-duty force of 45,500, the same number of active-duty personnel allowed in the previous authorization act.

The bill also contains a number of provisions that, if passed, will benefit Coast Guardsmen, including a section allowing the service to pay for some medical-related travel expenses personnel or family members who live in isolated areas of the U.S.

The bill includes a section that would change the vice commandant’s position to a four-star admiral’s billet and would allow the service to have four vice admirals, serving in the posts of deputy commandant for mission support; deputy commandant for national operations and policy; commander, force readiness command; and commander, operations command.

The bill would establish a district ombudsman program that would provide a liaison between ports, terminal operators, vessel owners, labor representatives and the Coast Guard.

It also would allow for the transfer of the decommissioned medium-endurance cutter Storis to the fledgling Storis Museum and Maritime Education Center, which hopes to turn the vintage 1942 vessel into Alaska’s first maritime museum.

The bill also includes the conveyance of an HU-25 Falcon jet to Elizabeth City State University, N.C., and offers first right of refusal for any decommissioned 41-foot patrol boats to the Haitian government.

“We’re asking Haiti to participate with us in drug interdiction, and my friends in Haiti say the number-one problem is lack of capacity to deal with the drugs and their number-one domestic problem is the drug trade, so the contribution we’ve made will be important not only to Haiti but to the United States,” said Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn.

The authorization bill also includes new regulations regarding ballast water discharge in the Great Lakes. The legislation, which has been pending for at least four years, is intended to help stop the spread of invasive species in the waterways.

The Transportation Committee is expected to conduct a full markup and approve both bills Thursday. They’ll then proceed to the House floor for consideration by the full legislative body.