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CG nominee addresses budget, Deepwater

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr. fielded questions about cuts in budget and manpower, as well as the service’s management of Deepwater at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday morning to be the next commandant of the Coast Guard.

Papp is commander of the Atlantic Area, which stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Persian Gulf and includes 42 states. If he is confirmed, he will take over in May for retiring Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. Commandants serve four-year terms.

The Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation has scheduled a confirmation vote for March 24. If it approves, the vote for confirmation would go before the full Senate.

Papp thanked President Obama and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for their confidence in nominating him to become the next commandant. Papp said that he had planned to retire after serving as chief of the Coast Guard’s office of congressional affairs in the late 1990s, but he changed his mind after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

“I’m humbled by the prospect to be the next commandant,” Papp testified.

Papp said he was disappointed to see the budget cuts after an “unprecedented growth” of the Coast Guard since the terrorist attacks; but he understood that the U.S. faces difficult economic times and hopes that these will be temporary cutbacks.

Committee members praised Papp for his 35 years of service. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., fondly recalled meeting Papp when he commanded the training barque Eagle and later when he worked in congressional affairs. He said he was convinced Papp would be a good commandant for the Coast Guard.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, cited Papp’s “abundance of expertise,” but she questioned Papp on the budget cuts and their effect on services. She said she was surprised that President Obama did not suspend budget cuts for the Coast Guard as he did for the four other armed services.

Snowe said the Coast Guard will have to perform the same duties with fewer people and cutters. The $10.08 billion fiscal 2011 budget proposal calls for a net reduction of 773 people and the decommissioning of four high-endurance cutters and one medium-endurance cutter.

“How can you perform the same missions at the same level?” she asked.

Papp said that two high-endurance cutters — Dallas and Gallatin — were effectively decommissioned for the past 1½ years because they were being overhauled. By next year, those high endurance cutters will be back in service. The Coast Guard also will commission its second national security cutter, Waesche, in two months, leaving a deficit of one ship.

Papp said that the Coast Guard should be able to continue its current missions, although it will be more difficult to handle unforeseen events. “We will be in a hole,” he said.

Papp addressed a wide variety of other issues at the hearing from boat licenses to drug interdiction. Although members kept the tone of the hearing congenial, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., did bring up the service’s record on its $27.4 billion acquisitions program known as Deepwater. Over the past five years, the project has been heavily criticized by Congress after cost overruns and mismanagement.

“I am nowhere close to being satisfied on the Coast Guard’s progress on Deepwater,” she said, promising to continue “aggressive” oversight.

Cantwell asked how Papp planned to approach future acquisitions and whether the Coast Guard was the lead system integrator on all future acquisitions.

Papp assured her that the Coast Guard had taken on the lead systems integrator role again after outsourcing that to a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman Ships Systems. (That outsourcing contract will expire in 2011.) He said the Coast Guard has gone back to strict compliance to acquisition management practices and promised transparency with the future contract to build offshore patrol cutters to replace the service’s medium endurance cutters. He said that the Coast Guard currently is negotiating a fixed-price contract on a fourth national security cutter.

“We appreciate your stewardship and constant oversight,” Papp said.