Congress boosts Coast Guard budget.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

* The Coast Guard has often been characterized as perennially underfunded, but thanks to Congress, the service received a major boost to its acquisition accounts for fiscal year 2016.

In the recently passed omnibus budget, Congress allocated the Coast Guard nearly $928 million more in acquisition, construction and improvement funding than it asked for in the president's fiscal year 2016 budget request. That will go toward a ninth national security cutter, a new polar icebreaker and increased funding for the offshore patrol cutter.

The funding increase comes at a time of growing missions for the service. Over the past year, it has taken on a larger role in patrolling the Western hemisphere as smugglers attempt to bring drugs into the United States. Additionally, as sea ice melts in the Arctic and opens up new waterways, the service--which operates the nation's polar icebreakers--will play a greater role in the region, officials have said.

The service in January issued a solicitation for a new icebreaker.

"The Coast Guard appreciates the tremendous support of Congress in addressing the service's priorities of both investing in future capabilities as well as preserving today's frontline operations," said Eric Nagel, a spokesman for the sea service. "[This] demonstrates Congress' recognition of the Coast Guard's role to secure the homeland and safeguard lives and property in the maritime domain."

Ashley Godwin, senior defense advisor for the Shipbuilders Council of America, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, said the increased budget would help the Coast Guard meet many of its future acquisition requirements.

"The administration has been doing a lot of lip service to increasing the Coast Guard's budget but the money hasn't been there," she said. "Congress basically said, 'Well, if you're not going to do it, we're going to do it.' So the increase was dramatic."

Congress allocated a total of $743.4 million for the national security cutter program--$652 million more than the service asked for in the president's budget. The bulk of it--$640 million--will go toward the acquisition of a ninth NSC, one more than the program of record called for. Twelve million dollars will go toward top-side engineering design work to deploy small unmanned aerial systems off the ship.

In an interview with National Defense prior to the finalization of the omnibus budget, Rear Adm. Joseph M. Vojvodich, the Coast Guard's assistant commandant for acquisition and chief acquisition officer, said the service was proud of the work it had done procuring the new cutter. It recently christened the sixth NSC, which will be delivered by the end of 2016. The...