[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 125 (Tuesday, July 22, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H3535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPPORTING OUR COAST GUARD

  (Mr. Courtney of Connecticut was recognized to address the House for 
5 minutes.)
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House of Representatives will 
be taking up H.R. 4275, the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act of 2025. 
That is legislation that updates and codifies changes and reforms to 
America's oldest continuous maritime service, the Coast Guard. It is 
actually called the first fleet because technically, actually the Coast 
Guard is older than the U.S. Navy.
  This bill contains many good, bipartisan provisions that are 
addressing many of the challenges that the Coast Guard faces every day, 
whether it is drug interdiction, obviously doing the work in terms of 
our coastal, littoral regions of the country, and making sure we have 
safe passage of commercial and civilian maritime activity.
  Included in this bill is a provision to reach out to our great ally 
Finland to update and modernize our icebreaker fleet. Our Polar Star 
large icebreaker is now 50 years old, and it is long past due, 
particularly with the challenges in the Arctic with Russia and China, 
to make sure we update and modernize our Coast Guard and icebreaking 
fleet.
  This bill also contains a long overdue provision to reform the Coast 
Guard statutes regarding protecting victims of sexual assault and 
harassment both within the Coast Guard service and also the Coast Guard 
Academy. I represent New London, Connecticut, which is home to the 
Coast Guard Academy that is an outstanding institution that builds 
future leaders for the Coast Guard. It actually has a large 
international contingent of allies such as Iceland and Pacific Island 
nations that come to learn at the cutting edge institution in terms of 
coastal activities that are there.
  Like all the military academies, there has been a shadow of, 
unfortunately, activity regarding female cadets over the years that 
have had to put up with totally unacceptable conduct and forcing them 
into almost an impossible position in terms of reporting this activity 
over the years.
  The bill includes a safe-to-report policy, which will protect members 
reporting sexual assault. Again, sometimes incidents occur where there 
may be minor misconduct issues where both the victim and the 
perpetrator are involved, and that risk of being punished for those 
minor misconduct has really inhibited people to come forward and report 
sexual assault. This is an issue which was the subject of exhaustive 
hearings at the Oversight and Government Reform Committee over the last 
8 years. Our dear, late Congressman Elijah Cummings conducted many of 
those hearings. There were brave whistleblowers that came forth, such 
as Dr. Kim Young-McLear who is now a retired commander from the Coast 
Guard. She testified before that committee and talked about, again, 
some of the hard experiences that she went through.
  Other military academies, such as West Point and Annapolis, have 
actually adopted safe-to-report policies, and tomorrow's bill will get 
the Coast Guard Academy in line with those institutions.
  This bill also extends the safe-to-report policy to the entire Coast 
Guard personnel, the entire service. That was done administratively by 
the last Commandant of the Coast Guard, Linda Fagan, who, again, I 
think was very focused in terms of making sure that the safe-to-report 
policy was going to be in place to eradicate activities that really 
harm the readiness and effectiveness of the Coast Guard.
  Women Coast Guard officers are some of the finest, most talented 
people who are doing the important work of the Coast Guard, and we need 
to make sure that there is a statutory structure in place to make sure 
that with this type of activity, people will be able to report it and 
get a remedy and a response, in some cases punishment to, again, make 
sure people are not hindered because of this unacceptable conduct.
  Tomorrow when we take up this bill, those brave women who came 
forward to testify and report their experience--and sometimes watched 
their dreams and their careers end because of the fact that they were 
subjected to unacceptable pressure and retaliation for reporting--will 
see that by law that is now going to be a thing of the past. It is long 
overdue, and, again, I just want to take a moment to publicly thank 
Commander Young-McLear and her colleagues for having the courage to 
step forward and make sure that the Congress is aware of this situation 
and will end it in the passage of tomorrow's bill.

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