[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 14, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6956-S6958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to echo what my colleague from
Tennessee just mentioned about a lot of bipartisan accomplishments on
the Senate floor over the last several weeks. They are really important
ones.
He led the charge on the opioid bill which is going to help our
entire country and so many others. They don't always get reported in
the press, but it is important to make sure our fellow Americans, our
constituents, know that is happening.
This afternoon, I want to talk about another one that is a really
important accomplishment that we were able to achieve on the Senate
floor a couple of hours ago; that is, the Coast Guard Authorization Act
of 2018.
A number of Senators have already been down on the floor to talk
about this: John Thune, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, which
is where the oversight and responsibility of the Coast Guard lies;
Senator Wicker from Mississippi; Senator Carper--so many Senators
contributed to this important piece of legislation that we just passed
today by almost a vote of over 90 Senators.
It is a very bipartisan piece of legislation that we were able to get
through the Senate floor today. As you know, this has taken some time.
For almost 2 years, we have been working on the Coast Guard bill. A
number of us put a lot of time and effort into it.
I do want to do a shout out to my staff: Eric Elam, my legislative
director; Tom Mansour, a Coast Guard fellow in my office; and Scott
Leathard. All of them worked literally for the last year and a half,
night and day, on this bill.
Again, it is important for America and certainly important for my
great State of Alaska. It raises a broader issue. We just celebrated
Veterans Day. Our country was rightfully focused on our veterans. There
was a lot of focus on the centennial of the Armistice of World War I,
the ending of World War I. Often when there is a focus on the armed
services, it focuses on the armed services at the Pentagon--Army, Navy,
Air Force, and Marines--and sometimes the brave men and women in the
Coast Guard can be overlooked. They shouldn't be. We all know that.
One of the things I tried to focus on in my time in the Senate is
making sure they are not. Prior to 9/11, the Coast Guard was probably
the only service in the entire U.S. military--because they are a member
of the services of the U.S. military--whose members were risking their
lives every single day on the job. Post-9/11, with the national
security challenges we have, every member of our military--all the
services--are risking their lives every day, but the Coast Guard does
it day in and day out.
Pre-9/11 and post-9/11, men and women in that wonderful service
undertake a heroic mission with actions that we see saving American
lives and defending our national security.
What do they focus on and what does this bill focus on? Well, the
bottom line is, this bill is focused on making sure the men and women
of the Coast Guard have the resources to do their job. Their job is
varied and extremely important.
We have all seen the Coast Guard coming out of the sky to rescue us--
rescue Americans on seas when they are in trouble; with the hurricanes
we have seen over the last couple of years; the heroic pictures of the
men and women in the Coast Guard doing thousands of rescues. We see
that as part of their mission. They have been described as angels in
helicopters. When they show up, it is certainly witnessing America at
its very best. We have seen a lot of that. The mission of the Coast
Guard also includes ice-breaking, marine environmental protection, port
security, and international crisis response. Many members are deployed
overseas in places like the Middle East, combating illegal fishing by
other nations, protecting American fishermen, protecting Alaskan
fishermen, readiness to support the Department of Defense operation. It
is a long list. The Coast Guard does it very well.
Importantly, the bill we just passed today will significantly help
the men and women with this important mission. You and I serve on the
Armed Services Committee. Again, what my colleague from Tennessee was
talking about is another one of these bipartisan areas of achievement
that we have seen in the Senate in the last year, year and a half,
consensus on issues like rebuilding our military. We are doing that on
the Armed Services Committee through the National Defense Authorization
Act that passes the Senate and the House every year.
I am certainly honored to be on the Armed Services Committee, where
we are working on rebuilding from the cuts of 2010 to 2015. They were
almost 25 percent of the Department of Defense budget while national
security challenges were increasing all over the world.
The other thing we are rebuilding--and it doesn't always get a lot of
attention--we are rebuilding the Coast Guard. In essence, this bill we
passed today is the NDAA for the U.S. Coast Guard. The recapitalization
and rebuilding of the Coast Guard is a core element of the bill we just
passed.
Let's run through a couple of examples. Like what we just did in the
NDAA, increasing the end strength of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and
Marines, this bill today works to increase the end strength of the U.S.
Coast
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Guard. Importantly, it starts to really accelerate what we are doing in
terms of recapitalizing the Coast Guard fleet. For example, this bill
authorizes the building of six more fast response cutters--these are
critical cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard--and three more national
security cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard. These are incredible
vessels. They are huge--400-plus feet.
I had the honor to go out to a commissioning of the Douglas Munro,
one of the new national security cutters. These ships can do it all.
They look like big Navy ships that can do it all. That is what these
national security cutters are doing.
This legislation also helps to streamline the building of Navy ships,
which is important as we recapitalize the fleet. It directs the Coast
Guard's overall policies.
Now I want to talk a little bit about some of the more specific
provisions in this bill that relate to my great State, the great State
of Alaska, where the Coast Guard and the people of Alaska have a very
special relationship. We love the men and women of the Coast Guard. We
see them in action all the time, doing heroic missions. We had the
largest Coast Guard base in the country in Kodiak, AK, and District
17--that is the Coast Guard district in Alaska--is the largest
geographic district in terms of square miles in the entire Coast Guard
area of responsibility. There are close to 4 million square miles and
over 47,000 miles of coastline just in the State of Alaska. That is
more coastline than in the rest of the lower 48 States combined. So the
Coast Guard has a huge mission in Alaska--a really important mission in
Alaska--and it covers all kinds of territory.
Let me just give you, again, a sense of the importance that District
17 and the men and women of the Coast Guard in Alaska have to my
constituents, to their fellow Alaskans--a snapshot from District 17's
website. It reads, just in an average month in Alaska, that the Coast
Guard saves 22 lives, performs 53 assists, and conducts 13 security
boardings and 22 security patrols throughout this gigantic area of
District 17, just to name a few of its duties, in addition to making
sure that illegal fishing in this part of our Nation doesn't occur.
I am also grateful that as we look at the recapitalization of the
Coast Guard's fleet, the former Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral
Zukunft, recognized how important Alaska was and sent me a letter, as I
am the chairman of the subcommittee in the Commerce Committee that is
in charge of the Coast Guard. My team and I put in a lot of effort with
Chairman Thune and others in writing this bill and in working on it for
the last 2 years.
In a letter to me prior to his retirement, the former Commandant of
the Coast Guard said that we know there are challenges and that there
is a growing mission, from the Coast Guard's perspective, in Alaska. In
terms of this recapitalization, we see a lot of these vessels coming to
Southeast Alaska. For example, six fast response cutters that are being
built and that are part of this bill are slated for Alaska, and two
additional patrol boats are for Petersburg and Juneau. The FRCs will be
home-ported--two of them--in Kodiak, one in Seward, one in Sitka, and
two previously commissioned FRCs will remain stationed in Ketchikan. So
those are a lot of assets coming, and I believe there are going to be
more. We are going to continue to work on that.
I thank the former Commandant and the current Commandant, Admiral
Schultz, who has been on the job for about 6 months and has already
been to Alaska three times. That is just another testament to
recognizing how important the Coast Guard is to the great State of
Alaska. I can't thank enough the men and women of the Coast Guard
nationally and in my State for the great work they do.
There are a number of provisions in this legislation, in addition to
the national areas of recapitalizing the Coast Guard, that are actually
focused, not surprisingly, on Alaska, given how important the Coast
Guard is to Alaska. Let me just highlight a few of them.
There is a provision that says the Coast Guard must position assets
to respond to any incidences given the national security and economic
significance growing in the Arctic region. The Department of Defense is
starting to focus on the Arctic region, and, certainly, the Coast Guard
is.
The provision further states that it requires the Coast Guard, in
consultation with the Department of Defense, to report to Congress on
the progress being made in implementing the Coast Guard's Arctic
strategy and to provide an assessment of the placement of additional
Coast Guard assets and cutters in light of meeting those strategic
objectives in the Arctic.
We know that the demands of a more strategic Arctic are putting a
strain on the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard. We believe--I
believe--that the provisions in this bill state that the Coast Guard
needs to look at that and provide more assets to do the mission if need
be.
As we are recapitalizing the fleet, it also talks about moving bigger
cutters in for smaller ones in region 17 because the Coast Guard must
continue to have adequate coverage. You don't want to move one ship out
and another ship in and have a gap in coverage. This bill focuses on
that--no gaps in coverage.
The bill also requires the Coast Guard to deliver a plan to extend
the life of the Polar Star, which is the heavy icebreaker that is home-
ported in Seattle and has a critical mission. Again, in the NDAA this
year, we received authorization for six additional heavy icebreakers--
three heavies, three mediums. Yet we need to make sure that we still
have coverage with the icebreakers we have as we look to build and
deploy the new Coast Guard icebreakers that were authorized in the NDAA
this summer. This provision focuses on that.
It directs the Coast Guard to conduct persistent, aircraft-based
surveillance in terms of monitoring illegal, unreported, and
unregulated fishing in the Western Pacific. This is a huge problem. We
have our 200-mile limit where American fishermen and Alaska fishermen
can fish off the coast of Alaska and other States, but we often have
pirate fishing going on. We have countries such as China that come and
illegally take fish that should be in our economic zone or on the high
seas. The Coast Guard does a great job in monitoring and catching this
illegal fishing, which harms the oceans and harms our fisheries. This
bill underscores how important that mission is and directs the Coast
Guard to make sure there is persistent, aircraft-based surveillance in
monitoring what we call IUU fishing--illegal, unreported, unregulated
fishing--in the Western Pacific.
The bill requires the Coast Guard to have tested the capability of
oilspill vessel response plans in Alaskan waters and to report to
Congress on these capabilities.
It also, importantly, focuses on funding to update and maintain the
Nation's nautical charts with there being an emphasis on the Arctic,
where there is growing vessel traffic. Yet we have nautical charts that
are 70 or 80 years old, and some places have never been charted.
This bill facilitates the construction of a viable home port for the
NOAA research vessel Fairweather in Ketchikan, AK, which is an issue
that is important to my constituents, and to be perfectly honest, with
regard to NOAA, it has been hanging out there for too long. This bill
helps to make sure that the vessel is going to be home-ported where it
should be legally home-ported under the law, and that is in Ketchikan.
Those are just a few examples of the national aspects of this bill
for the Coast Guard's recapitalization effort and of some of the more
important provisions that focus on the Coast Guard's special
relationship with Alaska.
This act also contains many important items for our fishermen and
fisheries and our maritime industry throughout the United States,
whether in the oceans, whether on the Great Lakes, whether in the
rivers that we have. It is very, very important to our fishing
community, to our fishermen, and to the maritime workers throughout the
country.
Of course, this is important to my State. I often refer to Alaska as
the superpower of seafood. What am I talking about? Almost 60 percent
of the commercial and sport fish that is harvested in the United States
of America comes from Alaska. It is billions of dollars in terms of the
economic impact for our State. So included in this legislation is
important language to permanently address issues that have plagued
Alaskan fishermen, American fishermen, and
[[Page S6958]]
commercial vessel owners and operators of maritime fleets and,
importantly, the workers in these important industries for decades--
regulatory problems and challenges that these important industries and
the important men and women who work in these industries have been
struggling with for decades with no long-term solutions. At long last,
this bill addresses these--the long-term, permanent solutions.
What am I talking about?
Currently, our fishing fleets throughout the entire country, as well
as vessel owners and operators--again, throughout the entire country in
rivers, lakes, and oceans--are forced to comply with a patchwork of
burdensome Federal and State regulations that are well-intentioned but
often conflicted for incidental discharges off the decks of these ships
and for ballast water. Let me start with the incidental discharges.
Again, it is very important to my State but very important to any
State with regard to the fishing industry and fishermen who work hard
every day. If you are a commercial fisherman on a fishing vessel and
you have caught some fish and you want to hose down your deck--because
let's face it; fishing can be a bit of a messy business--through a long
history of requirements and lawsuits, you are forced to report to the
EPA these incidental discharges, and you need to get a permit to hose
down your deck of a fishing vessel or you will face a fine.
Now, you don't have to be a fisherman to recognize that this is
ridiculous and that people--Democrats and Republicans in this body--
have been trying to address this issue for decades because it creates
inefficiency, and it certainly doesn't help the environment. It adds to
costs, inhibits economic prosperity, and hurts fishermen and the
vessels they operate. This body has introduced short-term fixes for
years to try and address this. Those have not been sufficient. So this
bill addresses it for good.
Let me talk about another provision that tries to cut through the
patchwork of burdensome State regulations--again, well-intentioned but
often conflicted for ballast water and vessels. Currently, ballast
water is regulated by both the Coast Guard and the EPA. They both have
separate, inconsistent, and sometimes directly conflicting sets of
Federal requirements that are interdispersed with requirements from
States. This is literally a patchwork of requirements for vessels that
move through different State waters. Let me give you an example.
You are the owner-operator of a commercial vessel that is going up
the full length of the Mississippi River. You are moving commerce and
keeping a strong economy stronger. As you do that, not only must you
comply with inconsistent Coast Guard and EPA requirements, but you also
will likely have to comply with different and separate requirements
regarding ballast water for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and
Missouri. You get the picture. It is a patchwork of regulations--all
well-intentioned--that has the impact of inhibiting commerce and, most
importantly, of inhibiting job opportunities for the men and women in
this commerce. Twenty-five States have been regulating ballast water
under separate, inconsistent, and sometimes directly conflicting sets
of requirements. This has not only inhibited U.S. economic growth, but
it also actually makes it more likely that invasive species will
accidentally be introduced into this ballast water because the
requirements are so different, it is hard to keep up with them.
So, again, what this bill does at long last, working across the
aisle--and trust me, we worked on this for over a year, on these
provisions, Democrats and Republicans rolling up their sleeves, in good
faith, getting to work. Because we know how important this is to our
constituents, we looked at and focused on getting permanent solutions,
not quick fixes--the way these issues have been handled in the past,
for over a decade--to these significant challenges.
This bill will provide a permanent exemption on incidental vessel
discharges for all commercial fishing vessels and commercial vessels
under 79 feet in length. This is very important to the American fishing
industry, the men and women in that industry, and it is something that
they have been advocating for and Members of this body, of both
parties, have been trying to get for well over a decade. Well, we did
it today. That is important. As I said, without this exemption, small
vessel owner-operators would be required, as they have been for years,
to get an EPA permit to hose off their decks--not a good use of the EPA
and not a good use of the hard-working time of American fishermen.
Similarly, this bill provides a comprehensive solution to this
patchwork ballast water challenge that I just described, establishing a
single, nationally uniform standard for the regulation of ballast water
and other vessel discharges, and the EPA and the Coast Guard, with
input from the States, will work together. This uniform standard will
have the impact of helping our environment and our maritime industry
and fishing industry workers and the U.S. economy all at the same time.
That is an important accomplishment, and that is why over 90 Senators
voted for this bill today.
In conclusion, the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard do heroic
work day in and day out. I am honored to chair the subcommittee of the
Commerce Committee in charge of the Coast Guard. This bipartisan bill
will support them and their incredibly important mission, and it was
long overdue. It was long overdue, but we got it done.
The Coast Guard's motto, ``Semper Paratus''--``Always Ready''--is a
motto I think we can learn from here in the U.S. Senate. It is so
appropriate for what they do for us. I want to make sure that the
members of the Coast Guard who are watching or learning about this bill
know that it is a signal that they have strong bipartisan support from
the vast majority of the Members of the U.S. Senate.
Hopefully, this bill will get over to the House quickly. We have been
working closely with the House on a number of these provisions, and
they are going to pass it, we hope, and we will get it to the President
soon for his signature.
Going forward, we have to work to make sure there is not an almost 2-
year delay in getting the Coast Guard Authorization Act passed in the
U.S. Senate. When we work together, we can see that it is very
bipartisan.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Presiding Officer
and I both know that the National Defense Authorization Act moves every
year. What I think we need to do is make sure, when we start debating
the NDAA in late spring, early summer every year, as we do, that we
reserve time to move and debate and pass the Coast Guard bill as well.
This is an issue I have raised with the leadership on both sides of the
aisle, with the chairmen of the Commerce Committee and the Armed
Services Committee, and I am hopeful that we can make some progress on
that so we are moving a Coast Guard Authorization Act, as we should be,
with the other services in the NDAA. But that is for tomorrow. For
today, we have an important accomplishment for our country, an
important accomplishment for the State of Alaska, and most importantly,
an important accomplishment for the men and women of the U.S. Coast
Guard who continue to undertake heroic actions day in and day out on
our behalf.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
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