By Emelie Rutherford
The newly approved Coast Guard authorization act includes more spending for Deepwater modernization efforts than the White House initially sought and calls on the maritime service to work more closely with the Pentagon on acquisition programs.
President Barack Obama signed the Coast Guard Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 into law on Oct. 15, giving the service its first policy-setting statute since 2006.
The act also includes a series of acquisition reforms, including some tied to the Integrated Deepwater System Program, a once-troubled 25-year effort to modernize ships, aircraft, and communication systems. The Coast Guard in recent years phased out Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS)–a partnership between Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Lockheed Martin [LMT]–as the lead systems integrator (LSI) of Deepwater.
The new act put into statute a ban on the Coast Guard using an LSI, except in some instances for a limited period of time. Yet the measure supports the Deepwater programs, and authorizes $1.23 billion for them. That’s $121 million more than the White House’s request back in February for $1.1 billion in Deepwater funding.
The Coast Guard could receive that full $1.23 billion in Deepwater funding in the budget-setting appropriations act as well. Though Congress has not yet passed such an appropriations bill for 2010, which began Oct. 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) in July called for $1.23 billion in Deepwater funding in its version of the bill. However, the House Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security subcommittee (HAC-HS) in July approved a bill that would cut the administration’s Deepwater request by $16 million.
The SAC, specifically, wants to boost the administration’s Deepwater request for Maritime Patrol Aircraft by $9 million, unmanned aircraft systems by $2 million, and the National Security Cutter (NSC) by $110 million. Details are not available on the HAC-HS’s proposed Deepwater cut.
Beyond Deepwater, the newly signed Coast Guard authorization act also calls on the service to consult with the Pentagon.
“The (Coast Guard) Commandant shall make arrangements as appropriate with the Secretary of Defense for support in contracting and management of Coast Guard acquisition programs,” it states. “The Commandant shall also seek opportunities to make use of Department of Defense contracts, and contracts of other appropriate agencies, to obtain the best possible price for assets acquired for the Coast Guard.”
The law further mandates “interservice technical assistance” with the Navy, calling for the commandant to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Navy secretary. The memo will give the Coast Guard assistance with the oversight of its major acquisition programs from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, including the Navy Systems Command.
The new law says the memo, in the least, will allow for: the exchange of technical assistance and support identified by the assistant commandants for Acquisition, Human Resources, Engineering, and Information technology; the appropriate use of Navy technical expertise; and the temporary assignment or exchange of personnel between the Coast Guard and Navy “to facilitate the development of organic capabilities in the Coast Guard.”
The new Coast Guard law further calls for the service’s new chief acquisition officer to “adopt, to the extent practicable, procedures modeled after those used by the Navy Senior Acquisition Official to approve all technical requirements.”
The statute also mandates a report by the Government Accountability Office on Coast Guard acquisition and management capabilities for large programs, with input on how the Pentagon can aid improvements.
The new law contains an array of other acquisition-related provisions.
It legally requires a Coast Guard chief acquisition office and an acquisition directorate. It calls for the service to conduct a mission-needs analysis that identifies capability gaps and affordability assessments before large acquisitions are initiated. The law mandates testing-and-evaluation programs and independent life-cycle cost estimates for large procurements. Also, similar to the Pentagon’s Nunn-McCurdy rules regarding over-budget programs, the Coast Guard statute requires that the service report to Congress about cost and schedule breaches with major acquisition efforts.
For shipbuilding, the new act says before the Coast Guard begins work to strengthen the hulls of the first two NSCs–Deepwater vessels found to have flaws–the service must give Congress an assessment of the proposed hull-strengthening design.
Under the new law the Coast Guard must have all future cutters, except for NSCs, classed by the American Bureau of Shipbuilding before final acceptance.
For polar icebreakers, the statute mandates a comparative cost-benefit analysis of rebuilding the existing fleet or buying new vessels that also examines whether the icebreakers should be operated by the Coast Guard or National Science Foundation.
The law also prods the Coast Guard to report to Congress the results of the service’s ongoing High-Latitude Study; the study is assessing polar icebreaking requirements for missions including search and rescue, marine pollution response and prevention, fisheries enforcement, and maritime commerce.