Aviation Week
Jun 22, 2009

The U.S. Coast Guard would get $8.9 billion in a fiscal 2010 homeland security spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

After passing the measure June 18 as part of a wider $42.9 billion spending bill for Homeland Security Department operations, the panel sent it to the Senate floor for action this week. The bill will still need to be reconciled with the $42.6 billion version under consideration in the House.

The Senate bill increases Coast Guard appropriations $268.2 million above the Obama administration’s budget request. It includes a slight increase for the Coast Guard’s long-term Deepwater recapitalization program to $1.2 billion from just over $1 billion currently.

The Deepwater money would provide $389 million to complete production of the fourth National Security Cutter (NSC) and buy long-lead-time materials for NSC 5. Also included: $175 million for two maritime patrol aircraft, as well as mission systems, and a flight simulator; $243 million for four Fast Response Cutter patrol boats; and $123 million to replace aging 41-foot Utility Boats acquired in the early 1970s.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard named Rear Adm. Ronald Rabago as its second chief acquisition officer June 15. The newly minted two-star admiral, whose title is assistant commandant for acquisition, had been the program executive officer of Deepwater and director of acquisition programs since the Coast Guard established an Acquisition Directorate in July 2007.

The Coast Guard created the Acquisition Directorate in response to problems with Deepwater — a roughly 25-year, $24 billion equipment overhaul effort — and the subsequent phasing out of a Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman joint venture as lead systems integrator (LSI). Lawmakers and other critics complained the Coast Guard had turned over too much oversight and know-how to contractors, leading to costly delays with converted patrol boats and other assets.

The affair helped sour lawmakers in general on the LSI approach, but it has also led to a new challenge for the Coast Guard to build up its own acquisition expertise. Deepwater makes up the vast majority of the DHS armed service’s acquisition.