Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of H.R. 7659, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2024.

This bipartisan legislation reauthorizes funding for the U.S. Coast Guard for fiscal years 2025 and 2026 and updates Coast Guard programs and policies.

This bill is a result of bipartisan negotiations between Chair Graves, Chair Webster, myself, and Ranking Member Carbajal and includes numerous contributions from members on and off the committee.

This bill is the latest example of bipartisanship thriving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Coast Guard operational readiness is at risk due to years of underfunding. A lack of investment led to a $3 billion shoreside infrastructure backlog, a lack of ice-breaking capacity in the Arctic and Great Lakes, and reduced capacity across several essential missions such as marine safety and mariner credentialing.

This bill begins to address the shortfall by authorizing $14.78 billion for the Coast Guard for fiscal year 2025 and $15.52 billion for fiscal year 2026.

These increases over current funding levels will give the Coast Guard the resources needed to execute its missions and ensure a basic standard of living for servicemembers.

In addition, this bill authorizes the Procurement, Construction, and Improvements account at $3.48 billion for fiscal year 2025 and $3.65 billion for fiscal year 2026--well above the President's budget request.

This level of funding should enable the Coast Guard to maintain its ongoing recapitalization programs, including the Polar Security Cutter and the Offshore Patrol Cutters.

Importantly, this bill also includes $180 million for waterfront improvements to Coast Guard Base Seattle which will ensure homeporting capacity for Polar Security Cutters.

Last Congress, we enacted substantial improvements to safety for mariners and passengers aboard vessels. This legislation builds upon that work by addressing additional safety risks on vessels and increasing the penalties for bad actors.

In 2022, the Aleutian Isle, a fishing vessel, began taking on water after running aground in Puget Sound off the coast of San Juan Island in my district. What should have been a salvaging-firefighting operation turned into an oil spill response operation.

The salvager listed on the vessel response plan did not have the capacity to adequately respond and that led to the vessel sinking and discharging oil.

This bill improves oil spill prevention by bolstering vessel response plans and ensuring timely, robust salvage firefighting responses when vessel incidents do occur.

This bill also includes vital provisions to begin addressing the mariner shortage.

The current mariner credentialing program, which the Coast Guard oversees, is outdated and relies on paper applications. Processing delays impact both existing and new mariners looking to enter the industry.

I appreciate Chair Graves working with me to include an authorization of $11 million for a new electronic credentialing system. This, coupled with other provisions, will begin to address the mariner shortage.

Finally, this bill includes the Coast Guard Protection and Accountability Act of 2024. This legislation was developed because the Coast Guard deliberately hid Operation Fouled Anchor and decades of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy.

The commandant is working hard to repair the lost confidence that resulted from Operation Fouled Anchor, and this legislation provides the tools to do so while increasing congressional oversight.

I thank Chair Graves, Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Chair Webster, and Ranking Member Carbajal for their cooperation in crafting this important legislation.

I look forward to our continued collaboration as the legislation moves forward. I urge all Members to support this bill.

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