2024海岸警卫队极地安全巡逻艇的成本（英）.pdf

Notes:Unless this report indicates otherwise,all years referred to are federal fiscal years,which run from October1 to September30 and are designated by the calendar year in which they end,and all costs are expressed in 2024dollars.All tonnage numbers are expressed as long tonsor 2,240poundswhich are also known as imperial tons or displacement tons.Numbers in the text may not add up to totals because of rounding.AUGUST|2024On April23,2019,the Coast Guard awarded a contract to VT Halter Marine to build the first of a class of new heavy polar icebreakers,called the Polar Security Cutter(PSC).The service plans to name the first ship the Polar Sentinel.On December29,2021,the Coast Guard exercised an option under that contract to have Halter Marine build the second ship of the class.Halter Marine was subsequently purchased by Bollinger Shipyards in November2022 and renamed Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding.Construction of the lead ship in the PSC program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.In February2024,the Coast Guard notified the Congress that the ship would experience cost growth in excess of 20percent and a schedule delay in excess of one year.Despite a contract awarded five years ago,full construc-tion of the lead ship has not begun,although the service is aiming to start by the end of calendar year 2024.The Congressional Budget Office was asked by the House Homeland Security Committee to provide inde-pendent estimates of the costs of the PSC programnot only for the three-ship program of record(that is,the officially approved program)but also for larger programs including as many as nine ships.This report describes those estimates.Using its own weight-based cost model,CBO estimates that the first PSC would cost$1.9billion in 2024dollars.Subsequent ships would average about$1.6billion each.Given those estimates,the three-ship PSC program would cost$5.1billionabout 60percent more than the Coast Guards current estimate.1 The Coast Guards current official estimate of the cost of acquiring three PSCs is$3.2billion,but the service is in the process of developing a new estimate,which it expects to release later in 2024.CBO estimates that operating and supporting a force of three PSCs would cost$12.4billion between 2029 and 2063,when those ships would be in service.If the Coast Guard acquires more than three ships,operating costs would be higher and would continue for a longer period.The Polar Security Cutter ProgramThe Homeland Security Act of 2002created the Department of Homeland Security and transferred the Coast Guard from the Department of Transportation to the new department.The law listed 11specific missions that the service must be prepared to perform.2 The Coast Guards polar icebreakers support 9 of those 11missions in the worlds polar regions:marine safety;search and rescue;aids to navigation;fisheries law enforcement;marine environmental protection;ice operations;polic-ing ports and waterways and conducting coastal security;1.CBO testified on these analytical results on May7,2024.See testimony of Eric J.Labs,Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons,before the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security,Committee on Homeland Security,U.S.House of Representatives,The Cost of the Coast Guards Polar Security Cutter(April30,2024),www.cbo.gov/publication/60168.2.Sec.888 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002,Public Law107-296,116Stat.2135,2249,https:/ Cost of the Coast Guards Polar Security Cutter2THE COST OF THE COAST GUARDS POLAR SECURITY CUTTER AUGUST 2024defense readiness;and other law enforcement.3 The ice-breakers do not support the missions of drug interdiction or migrant interdiction.4 The Coast Guard is developing programs to replace its existing polar icebreakers over the next two decades as well as to increase their number.The Coast Guards Existing Polar IcebreakersThe Coast Guard currently operates two polar icebreak-ers:the Polar Star,a heavy icebreaker,and the Healy,a medium icebreaker.A heavy icebreaker is defined not by its weight or by the amount of water it displaces but by the amount of ice it can break while under-way.The Coast Guards heavy icebreakers can break through 6feet of ice continuously at a speed of 3knots and can break through 20or more feet of ice by back-ing up and ramming.Medium icebreakers can break through 4.5feet of ice at 3knots and 8feet or more by backing up and ramming.Polar icebreakers generally cut a path through ice-covered water by pushing the bow up onto the ice,where the weight of the ship breaks the ice into pieces.In mod-ern icebreakers,the shape of the hull typically folds the broken ice under the adjacent solid ice as the ship passes,leaving a clean channel in its wake.Three characteristics of icebreakers allow them to perform that task:powerful engines,a strongly reinforced hull,and a sloping bow.Together,those features make icebreakers relatively short,wide,and very heavy.The Polar Star was built in the 1970s and displaces 13,200tons of water when fully loaded(that is,when carrying crew,stores,cargo,ammunition,fuel,and other liquids).Commissioned in 1976,the Polar Star is 48years old18years beyond its designed service life.The Healy,which entered service in 2000,displaces 16,000tons when fully loaded.Although the Healy is longer and heavier than the Polar Star,it is a medium icebreaker because its engines are less powerful,with half the shaft horsepower of the heavy icebreaker and,thus,less icebreaking capability.(Shaft horsepower is 3.The terms heavy icebreaker and medium icebreaker in this report refer to polar icebreakers.The Coast Guard operates a heavy icebreaker,called the Mackinaw,on the Great Lakes,but that ship is much smaller and has much less icebreaking capability than the services polar icebreakers.For more information on the Coast Guards current and future icebreaker programs,see Ronald ORourke,Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter(Polar Icebreaker)Program:Background and Issues for Congress,Report for Congress RL34391,version 264(Congressional Research Service,updated July15,2024),https:/ amount of power delivered by a ships engines to its propeller or turbine shaft.)Although its designed service life ends in 2030,the Healy was forced to return to port in August2024because of an electrical fire,and the Coast Guard is uncertain when or if the ship will be able to resume normal operations.As a result,the service may have no icebreaker presence in the Arctic this summer.5 Plans for Replacing the Existing Polar IcebreakersIn 2013,the Coast Guard proposed a plan to replace its two operational ships with six new polar icebreakers:three heavy icebreakers and three medium icebreakers.The Coast Guards most recent analysis of its goals for the mix of ships in its fleet(announced in April2023)calls for increasing the number of new polar icebreakers to a total of eight or nine:four or five heavy icebreakers and four or five medium icebreakers.6 The Coast Guard believes that the year-round presence of one icebreaker in the East Arctic and another in the West Arctic,as well as the half-time presence of an icebreaker in the Antarctic,is necessary.The increase in the number of polar icebreakers desired by the Coast Guard in the Arctic is driven by increased commercial activity and economic and geopolitical competition in that region.The services desire for an icebreaker in the Antarctic stems primarily from the continuing need to resupply McMurdo Station,a U.S.research facility on the continent that is operated by the National Science Foundation.7 The Coast Guard has stated that main-taining a presence of 2.5heavy and medium icebreak-ers in the polar regions will require a total of eight to nine ships when accounting for maintenance and rotating ship patrols.5.Ben Townsend,“Coast Guards Healy Icebreaker Returns to Seattle Following Fire in Engineering Space,”KNOM Radio Mission(August9,2024),https:/ Ervin,“Video:Vice Commandant Lunday Says Three USCG Cutters Laid Up by Personnel Shortages,”Marine Log(August8,2024),https:/ of Homeland Security,United States Coast Guard,Coast Guard Fleet Mix Analysis:Fiscal Year 2022Report to Congress(April11,2023).7.Ronald ORourke,Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter(Polar Icebreaker)Program:Background and Issues for Congress,Report for Congress RL34391,version 264(Congressional Research Service,updated July15,2024),p.2,https:/ also Mike Schuler,“USCGC Polar Star Completes Annual Mission to Antarctica,”gCaptain(February26,2024),https:/ 2024 THE COST OF THE COAST GUARDS POLAR SECURITY CUTTERThe Polar Security Cutter is the Coast Guards proposed new heavy icebreaker.It will break ice in the manner described above but with improved capabilities relative to the Polar Star.Specifically,the PSC will also be able to break ice when moving astern(that is,in reverse).The ships propulsion system uses azimuth propulsors,which are propellers mounted on a steerable pod powered by electricity from the ships generators.By rotating the propulsors,the PSC will be able to direct thrust astern or to the side and break ice with the stern of the ship.Icebreakers with traditional propulsion systems and rud-ders,such as the Polar Star and the Healy,cannot break ice when moving in reverse.The new medium icebreaker that the service plans to build at some point in the future has been designated the Arctic Security Cutter.The medium icebreaker will have a shallower draft(the vertical distance from the waterline to the lowest point on the bottom of the ship)than the PSC and will therefore be able to conduct patrols and visit ports in shallower areas that are inaccessible to the deeper-drafted heavy icebreaker.The Coast Guard is also buying a commercial icebreaker,the Aiviq,which was built as a support ship for Arctic oil exploration.The service plans to convert it into another medium icebreaker,but that process will take at least twoyears.8 The Design of the New Heavy Polar IcebreakerOn February17,2017,the Coast Guard awarded con-tracts to five shipyards to develop and analyze designs for a heavy polar icebreaker that can carry out missions set by the service and to reduce the ships acquisition costs and production time.Those firms were Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport,Louisiana;Fincantieri Marine Group of Washington,D.C.;General Dynamicss National Steel and Shipbuilding Company of San Diego,California;Huntington Ingalls Industries of Pascagoula,Mississippi;and VT Halter Marine,also of Pascagoula,Mississippi,which was owned by Singapore Technologies Engineering.After those studies were completed,the Coast Guard solicited bids for the new icebreaker.Bids were sub-mitted by Bollinger;Philly Shipyard of Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,partnered with Fincantieri Marinette Marine of Marinette,Wisconsin;and Halter Marine,8.Heather Mongilio,“Coast Guard Names Juneau as Home Port for New Icebreaker,”USNI News(August 15,2014),https:/ with TAI Associates of New Orleans,Louisiana.On April23,2019,the Coast Guard awarded a fixed-price contract with incentives to Halter Marine,now Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding,to build the first Polar Security Cutter,with options to build a second and third ship.On December29,2021,the Coast Guard exercised the option to have Halter Marine build the second PSC but limited it for now to procurement of long-lead-time materials.The Coast Guard is working with the Navy to manage the program and acquire the ships.In the five years since the contract was awarded,the development and design of the PSC has progressed,but little work on building the first ship has been completed.In that time,the Coast Guards estimate of the ships lightship displacementa key indicator of costsgrew by 40percent,while its cost estimate for a three-ship program increased by just 16percent.(Lightship displace-ment measures the weight of the water a ship displaces without its crew,stores,cargo,ammunition,fuel,and other liquids.)In February2024,the Coast Guard notified the Congress that the PSC lead ship would experience cost growth of more than 20percent and its production would be delayed by more than a year.The service is hoping that the shipyard will begin substantial construction on the lead ship by the end of this year,with an estimated delivery date in 2029.The Coast Guard also expects to release a revised estimate of the cost of the three-ship PSC program by the end of this year.As both the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office have reported,work on the design of the PSC has been much slower than expected.9 Halter Marine and the ship design firm that it contracted with,TAI Associates,based their design for the PSC on the replacement for a German icebreaker used for marine research.The replacement,currently called the new Polarstern,is expected to enter service in 2027.10 To 9.Ronald ORourke,Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter(Polar Icebreaker)Program:Background and Issues for Congress,Report for Congress RL34391,version 264(Congressional Research Service,updated July15,2024),https:/ Accountability Office,Navy Shipbuilding:Increased Use of Leading Design Practices Could Improve Timeliness of Deliveries,GAO-24-105503(May2,2024),www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105503;and Government Accountability Office,Coast Guard Acquisitions:Polar Security Cutter Needs to Stabilize Design Before Starting Construction and Improve Schedule Oversight,GAO-23-105949(July27,2023),www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105949.10.Alfred-Wegener-Institut,“New Polarstern”(updated March21,2024),https:/ COST OF THE COAST GUARDS POLAR SECURITY CUTTER AUGUST 2024meet the needs of the U.S.Coast Guard,the ships design required substantial modifications.As of July2024,the design of the PSC was only 59percent complete.CBOs Estimates of the Costs to Procure and Operate the Polar Security CutterCBO independently estimated the costs of the Polar Security Cutter programboth the costs to procure the ships and the costs to operate and support those ships over the course of their expected service life.The agency examined other ships that the Navy and the Coast Guard have built to develop a weight-based estimate of the costs of the PSC.CBO relied on data on the operating costs of other Coast Guard ships to develop estimates of the operation and support costs for the PSCs over their notional 30-year service life.1111.CBO analyzed operation and support costs over the notional service life of the shipsbut in practice,the Coast Guard often operates ships well beyond their initially planned service life.The Coast Guards existing heavy icebreaker,the Polar Star,was designed to be used for 30years;with upgrades and overhauls over the course of its life,it is currently 48years old.Operation and support costs would be higher than CBOs estimate if the ships operated for longer.Procurement CostsCBO compared the Polar Security Cutter with the Coast Guards heavy icebreaker,the Polar Star;its medium icebreaker,the Healy;and some of the Navys amphibi-ous ships that are similar in size to the PS