WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that the first of its two new medium-weight icebreakers will be homeported in Alaska.
A Finnish firm is under contract to build up to four of the ships, called Arctic security cutters, and the first is projected to arrive in 2028.
Sen. Dan Sullivan celebrated the homeporting announcement with the cabinet secretary who oversees the Coast Guard, Markwayne Mullin. In a video posted on social media, they credited each other. Mullin, who was a fellow Republican senator until last month, said he’d never seen Sullivan so excited.
"You’re like a kid in a candy store," he said.
"I am a kid in a candy store," Sullivan said. "It’s great for Alaska. It’s great for America. And it took my good friend Markwayne Mullin, the new secretary of Homeland Security to actually say, ‘We’re doing it.’”
The Coast Guard hasn’t decided yet where in Alaska the two ice breakers will be assigned, or if they will be kept at the same port.
In the meantime, the announcement adds a feather to Sullivan’s cap as he runs for a third term, especially because billions of dollars for icebreakers was in last year’s budget reconciliation bill, and Sullivan strives to portray the contentious legislation as hugely beneficial to Alaska.
Sullivan told Alaska reporters that having another Coast Guard vessel homeported in Alaska will create economic momentum as the ships undergo maintenance.
“Having more shipbuilding assets in our state builds on more Coast Guard assets, and then it's going to increase more shipbuilding capacity, and the jobs in this sector of our economy, particularly in Southeast, are really significantly increasing," he said.
Last year the Coast Guard christened the Storis, an icebreaker that was converted from an oilfield services ship once under lease to Shell. The Coast Guard announced its homeport will be Juneau, once facilities for it are completed. That’s projected to be in 2029.
Congress has also appropriated billions of dollars to build a fleet of heavy icebreakers, called polar security cutters, but the endeavor has fallen years behind schedule.
