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House Panel Wants Coast Guard To Consider Foreign Icebreakers

By Cal Biesecker

Thursday, June 23rd, 2022

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House Panel Wants Coast Guard To Consider Foreign Icebreakers

The Coast Guard's Polar Star is the nation's only heavy polar icebreaker. In this Coast Guard photo the vessel is shown conducting ice breaking operations in Antarctica in Jan. 2017.

The Coast Guard’s nascent effort to acquire a commercial icebreaker to help fill near-term Arctic icebreaking needs should be expanded beyond a domestically available ship to also consider foreign vessels, House appropriators say. “In order to conduct a full and open competition, the Coast Guard shall expand its source selection criteria to include commercially available polar icebreaking vessels that may require” a waiver that would be allowed under existing laws, says a draft report by the committee. The draft report…

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