By Calvin Biesecker
Congressional appropriators last week agreed to provide enough funds in FY ’10 for the Coast Guard to complete construction of the fourth National Security Cutter (NSC) and begin buying long-lead materials for the fifth vessel, something the service is considering doing in a single contract.
House and Senate Conferees on the FY ’10 Homeland Security Appropriations Act agreed to a $389.5 million budget for the NSC, $108 million higher than the Coast Guard’s original request. Inclusion of the additional funding for the long-lead items will avoid a production break between the fourth and fifth NSCs.
The Obama administration in its original budget request did not include the long-lead funding. Nonetheless, when the Coast Guard issued its Request for Proposals for the fourth vessel, it included options to also include the purchase of long-lead materials for the next NSC (Defense Daily, June 29).
By combining production for one vessel with long-lead materials for the next ship in one contract, the Coast Guard is trying to be more efficient on multiple levels, including not having to negotiate as many separate contracts and obtaining better pricing by improving visibility for the contractor, as well as to take advantage of the fact that the technical requirements and baseline are locked down.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] is the shipbuilder for the Coast Guard’s planned fleet of eight 418-foot NSCs. The first cutter, the Bertholf, was delivered to the Coast Guard more than a year ago. The second vessel, the Waesche, is scheduled for initial acceptance by the Coast Guard on Nov. 6. The third ship, the Stratton, is 27 percent complete.
The Coast Guard expects to award the production contract for NSC-4, the Hamilton, toward the end of this year or early in 2010.
The FY ’10 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security must still be approved by the House and Senate. A conference report accompanying the bill was released this week.
In their report, the appropriators agreed to fence $50 million of the Coast Guard Headquarters Directorate’s funding until the service provides Congress with several reports related to the Deepwater modernization program, including an updated Revised Deepwater Implementation Plan, a Capital Investment Plan for FY ’11-15, and the Quarterly Acquisition Report for the second quarter of FY ’10. The appropriators provide $1.2 billion budget for Deepwater. The NSC project is one component of Deepwater.
Elsewhere in the Deepwater funding, the appropriators provide $121 million for the Response Boat-Medium (RB-M), which supports the purchase of 39 craft, nine more than requested. The small 45-foot harbor patrol boat being built by Marinette Marine Corp., which is part of Italy’s Fincantieri Marine Group, and will replace aging 41-foot utility craft
The pending budget also funds two HC-144A Maritime Patrol Aircraft supplied by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. Separately, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told Defense Daily yesterday that DHS has agreed to a request by the service to purchase nine more HC-144As under the existing low-rate initial production (LRIP) effort to prevent a break in production while operational test and evaluation of the aircraft continues (Defense Daily, Sept. 14). A formal acquisition decision memorandum from DHS is forthcoming, she said.
The Coast Guard still plans to buy 36 HC-144s overall.
The appropriators also fully funded the Coast Guard’s request for the Fast Response Cutter (FRC) program at $243 million, allowing for production of the first four 153-foot vessels. Bollinger Shipyards is building the FRC.
The budget also provides $24.7 million for the Coast Guard’s research and development account, $5 million more than requested. The increase is for additional work on research into Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) that could operate from the NSCs and other UAS that would be land-based.