[Op-Ed] Mission Impossible: A New U.S. Icebreaker

Op-Ed by Adam Patrick Murray, J.D.

Congress used the 2014 Coast Guard authorization bill to force the service into a decision it has avoided since 2010: whether to decommission or reactivate the icebreaker Polar Sea. The decision is difficult because the U.S.’s future icebreaking needs remain highly speculative. It is compounded by disagreements among the Coast Guard leadership, the President, Members of Congress and representatives of the State of Alaska on what course to take.

The Coast Guard currently has two operational polar icebreakers, the Polar Star and Healy, in addition to the deactivated Polar Sea. The discussion about whether the U.S. needs another has become a complex of thorny issues ranging from austerity budgeting to climate change. 

A January 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service compiled the relevant facts, revealing a tension between Coast Guard, presidential and congressional priorities without explaining why these may never align. To evaluate that issue, we examine the icebreaker’s role in Coast Guard missions and then consider how the decision-makers’ opinions about Arctic development may influence their calculus.

Polar Icebreakers Perform Specialized Missions

According to the report, “…icebreakers are multi-mission ships that can break through ice, support scientific research missions, and perform other missions typically performed by Coast Guard ships.” Polar Star and Polar Sea can cut through thick ice typical in much of Antarctica. Polar Star’s primary mission supports Antarctic research at McMurdo Station. Healy can break through only thinner ice and primarily supports Arctic research. 

Icebreakers sometimes perform other Coast Guard functions. For example, Healy was within reach last summer when a private sailor surrounded by gathering Arctic ice needed the Coast Guard to break him out. Other examples exist, but the main use of these ships’ icebreaking capacity is to advance scientific understanding of ice-covered areas.

The Coast Guard considers current capability sufficient to meet existing needs. However, Vice Admiral Charles Ray, Commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area, described the situation as uncomfortably “one deep.” When Polar Star goes south for the Austral summer, the Coast Guard puts Healy in annual maintenance. When Healy goes north, Polar Star goes into maintenance. Generally, the Coast Guard has only one of these ships available at a time.

“Ice Operations” represent one of eleven statutory Coast Guard missions. The February 2015 United States Coast Guard Posture Statement provided a snapshot of how these translate into action. “On an average day, the Coast Guard:
 
•    conducts 48 search and rescue cases; 
•    saves nine lives; 
•    assists 73 people in distress; 
•    saves over $132,000 in property; 
•    seizes 297 pounds of marijuana and 549 pounds of cocaine worth $8.2 million;
•    services 134 buoys and fixed aids to navigation; 
•    interdicts 6 illegal migrants; 
•    conducts 24 security boardings in and around U.S. ports; 
•    escorts five high-capacity passenger vessels; 
•    conducts 54 waterborne patrols of critical maritime infrastructure; 
•    investigates 24 pollution incidents; 
•    inspects 127 vessels, containers and marine facilities; 
•    issues 173 credentials to merchant mariners, and 
•    facilitates movement of $8.7 billion worth of goods and commodities through the nation’s marine transportation system.”

An almost immeasurably small amount of this takes place in polar ice. The Coast Guard accomplishes the rest without polar icebreakers.

The Coast Guard Prioritizes Acquiring Vessels Used More Frequently Than Icebreakers

The Coast Guard motto—Semper Paratus—means “always ready.” The agency must maintain a fleet of vessels prepared to fulfill this promise. According to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report, the Coast Guard initiated its current acquisition effort in the late 1990s after determining that many of its assets would reach their retirement age within several years of one another. 

The aging icebreaker fleet is one component of this effort. In an era of sequestration, however, the Coast Guard must proceed in order of priority. Austerity funding forces the Coast Guard to delay some recapitalization efforts.

Last year it operated 1,566 aging cutters, boats and aircraft. The President proposed a 2015 Coast Guard budget that would dedicate $1.08 billion to Acquisition, Construction, and Improvements (AC&I), including $803 million for vessels. Given the average Coast Guard day described above, it should surprise no one that the Coast Guard proposes to spend 93 percent of the AC&I vessel budget on National Security Cutters (NSCs) and Fast Response Cutters (FSCs) central to its most common operations and less than one percent on Polar Icebreakers. After finishing the NSCs and FRCs, the Coast Guard will launch its largest capitalization project ever, the new Offshore Patrol Cutters.

For existing operations, adding a new icebreaker would primarily add a redundancy in assets necessary only to resupply McMurdo Station, a mission the National Science Foundation accomplished without Coast Guard icebreakers while the Polar Star underwent repairs. Admiral Robert Papp, the former Coast Guard Commandant and current Special Representative for the Arctic, put it to Congress bluntly: “I can’t afford to pay for an icebreaker in a one billion dollar [budget] because it would just displace other things that I have a higher priority for.”

The President’s Arctic Agenda Does Not Require Increased Icebreaking Capacity

President Obama probably agrees with Admiral Papp’s assessment. Within existing budget constraints and considering the President’s broader policy goals, he is unlikely to reorder Coast Guard priorities. It takes no more than a snapshot of the President’s Arctic agenda to understand why.

First, the need for new polar icebreakers depends mostly on the amount and kind of maritime activity in the U.S. Arctic. The Antarctic represents a very small part of Coast Guard operations, but the agency must serve all offshore areas along Alaska’s 6,640 mile coastline. The Arctic Council’s Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment identified resource development as the key driver of future Arctic marine activity. 

While diminishing sea ice opens new Arctic shipping and development possibilities, these have yet to significantly materialize in the U.S. One reason is the lack of Coast Guard icebreaker support for development activities. For icebreakers to surpass the other cutters’ priority level, the U.S. would need to experience either (1) substantial Arctic development, or (2) an overwhelming desire to provide icebreaker support so that more development would occur. 

Existing activities include Bering Sea traffic and Shell’s plans to drill in the Chukchi Sea this summer. These activities represent a miniscule fraction of the Coast Guard’s average day and may not require icebreaking. The truth is that people who want more Arctic development assign a much higher priority to icebreaker acquisition than those who envision a less-developed Arctic.

Second, President Obama pursues some policies that are not compatible with substantial Arctic development. Beyond taking certain Arctic areas out of development consideration entirely, he actively seeks a major new global climate change agreement, evidenced by his Joint Announcement on Climate Change with China last November. In the politics of global climate change, the leader of one of the world’s richest and historically most-polluting countries simply cannot gain carbon emission concessions from poorer, developing countries while supporting new carbon exploration in one of the world’s most sensitive, high-risk environments. 

Good faith requires the President to show that the U.S. will make a real sacrifice. Foregoing some level of Arctic oil exploration sends that message. Active promotion of Arctic development sends the opposite message. The President may achieve his Arctic vision without increased icebreaking capacity. His Arctic Strategy and Implementation Plan requires the Coast Guard only to maintain icebreaking capabilities sufficient to project U.S. sovereignty, support U.S. interests and facilitate research.

Third, Coast Guard officials indicated at several congressional hearings that Healy and Polar Star meet current requirements so long as they remain operational. In fact, Healy alone may meet those needs based on the President’s vision of limited Arctic development and the ability to resupply McMurdo in other ways. The Coast Guard and the President would certainly find that situation uncomfortable, but given existing budget constraints the President’s overall Arctic priorities do not support spending roughly $1 billion on a new icebreaker or even $100 to $400 million to reactivate the Polar Sea. 

Under the President’s vision, icebreaker acquisition may not achieve priority until it reaches what Vice Admiral Ray might call “zero deep,” the situation once Healy is the only polar icebreaker with enough service life left to cover the time it would take to build a new one.

Congress Forces a Polar Sea Decision While Austerity Continues

Congress has a different plan that is still only half-baked. It seems to envision an Arctic with increased icebreaker needs but has not resolved the austerity dilemma. Congress emphasized Arctic operations by devoting an entire title to the subject in the Howard Coble Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2014. The Act requires the Coast Guard to decommission or rebuild Polar Sea. If it decommissions the ship, Congress requires a written plan to maintain icebreaking services through 2024. Congress also requires a document outlining Coast Guard icebreaking strategies though 2050.

This could force the Coast Guard to assign icebreaking a higher priority. The Coast Guard probably could not design, build and launch a replacement before Polar Star’s service life ends around 2022, and none of the three existing vessels could realistically last through 2050. 

If the option to reactivate Polar Sea vanishes, any realistic strategy must include either a new icebreaker or reduced service. Congress stands poised to appropriate just $1.2 billion for 2015 Coast Guard acquisitions. For 2016, the Coast Guard proposes to spend only $4 million on icebreaker acquisition. If the U.S. is to have a new polar icebreaker, someone needs a new position.

Any Icebreaker Decision Must Consider the Indeterminate Russian Threat

The wisdom of austerity and the desired extent of Arctic development are not the only opinions that matter. Any icebreaker decision faces a mission impossible: Calculate the Russian threat. The new report indicates Russia has seven icebreakers as capable as Healy and six nuclear-powered icebreakers that exceed Polar Star and Polar Sea’s capabilities. Russia remains cooperative in international fora like the Arctic Council and the International Maritime Organization but also spent much of 2014 building Arctic military capabilities.

To be fair, Russia’s need for Arctic military support surpasses that of the U.S. Its Arctic coastline is nearly 15 times longer than Alaska’s. The Russian Arctic already has significantly increased shipping and development activity. Also, the U.S. Navy’s 2014 Arctic Roadmap projects a low-threat security environment in the Arctic, characterized by peaceful resolution of differences. 

Still, former Alaska Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, whose testimony appears in the new report, expressed deep concerns at a recent conference in Seattle about a potential U.S. dependence on Russia’s vastly superior icebreaking capacity. Reasonable minds may disagree about whether this amounts to a threat, but icebreaker decision-makers must register a related opinion.

Private Icebreaking May Work for Private Companies, but Not the Coast Guard

Some Alaskans (including Treadwell and Representative Don Young) have suggested for years that the U.S. consider privately built and operated icebreakers for at least some Arctic operations. The report suggests this idea has several fatal flaws, at least for the Coast Guard.

First, apparently no existing ships have the required capabilities. Second, any private option would likely cost U.S. taxpayers more than either building or rebuilding an icebreaker. Even a leased ship would need to be designed and built for Coast Guard use. Admiral Papp suggested such an arrangement might require enough upfront Coast Guard spending to blow the budget while still leaving the service without a ship to call its own. Moreover, any company that designed, built, and owned such a ship would lease it only at a profit. Taxpayers could avoid paying for that profit if the Coast Guard owned the ship.

The report indicates that a leased ship, possibly even privately crewed but under Coast Guard command, could legally fulfill Coast Guard missions. Yet it also suggests that “the inherently governmental missions of the Coast Guard must be performed using government-owned and operated vessels.” Private companies may, and perhaps should, contract and pay for their own icebreaking services. But the Coast Guard has probably decided against a lease option, albeit without entirely killing the idea.

Under austerity funding, the Coast Guard is not likely to prioritize a new icebreaker until the need is more developed. Doing otherwise would require a major reimagining of how the average Coast Guard day should inform the acquisition priorities. It would require a speculative approach to Coast Guard spending that neither the service nor the President seem inclined to adopt. Unless Congress has a new financial plan, we have yet to see just how thin U.S. icebreaker coverage might spread before a new U.S. ship breaks Arctic ice. - MarEx

Adam Murray is a Research Fellow at the University of Washington’s Arctic Law & Policy Institute.