Press Releases

Opening remarks, as prepared, of Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Mike Ezell (R-MS) from today’s hearing entitled “Taking Account: Implementation of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025, Reconciliation, and Force Design 2028”:

The Coast Guard is a military service that performs a comprehensive set of safety, lifesaving, law enforcement, and national security missions. The Service’s activities benefit and safeguard recreational boaters, commercial vessel operators, and commercial fishing. The general public benefits from Coast Guard personnel who bravely and selflessly carry out duties that save lives, enforce the law, battle trans-national criminal enterprises, and protect the national security and territorial integrity of the United States. They perform all these functions exceptionally well, especially in light of the fact the Service is an organization that is chronically under-resourced.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was a historic $25 billion investment in the Coast Guard. It represents an effort to clear the way for the Coast Guard to recapitalize its dilapidated shoreside, surface, and air assets and to create a 21st century Service capable of meeting 21st century challenges and threats. The bill provides for the equivalent of a staggering 15 years’ worth of annual procurement funding, and it is the largest single investment in the Coast Guard’s history.   

The Coast Guard has obligated a large portion of the funds provided by the law. This committee and Congress have a responsibility to ensure the dollars entrusted to the Coast Guard are being spent responsibly and as they were intended. To do that, we require clarity on where the assets being procured will be homeported and how the Coast Guard plans to build the shoreside infrastructure necessary to sustain them. Importantly, this includes sufficient housing and related facilities for the Coast Guard members who will crew these platforms.

The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025 authorizes appropriations for numerous assets, including the twelfth National Security Cutter, three Fast Response Cutters, a commercial icebreaker, and the Arctic Security Cutter program, including evaluating foreign shipyards in Finland and Sweden. Both bills also establish accountability measures to ensure the Service is responsive to Congressional direction and is acting as a good steward of taxpayer dollars. 

Beyond these accountability measures, the bill also authorizes appropriations for the operations and support, and procurement and investment accounts through fiscal year 2027, at amounts sufficient for the Coast Guard to begin increasing the number of uniformed and civilian personnel needed to maintain the assets purchased with reconciliation funds, as well as to hire a sufficient maritime safety workforce. The legislation also takes measures to ensure the members needed to serve on these assets have sufficient healthcare and childcare.

The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025 imposes needed accountability requirements related to homeporting and maintenance, and acquisition planning, a longstanding issue for the Coast Guard. We are concerned that the Service’s apparent lack of planning puts not just modernization efforts, but also mission accomplishment in jeopardy. We are interested in learning today how the Coast Guard will meet these accountability requirements.

Coast Guard modernization efforts are taking place under the architecture of the Force Design 2028 plan, which envisions a comprehensive overhaul of the Service’s leadership, organization, technology, and contracting and acquisition processes. 

So far, the Coast Guard has undertaken several actions to begin implementation of Force Design 2028, including growing the workforce by over 1,100 positions, realigning 68 percent of positions across Coast Guard headquarters, and realigning the Services’ top acquisitions projects. To help meet the goals of future personnel growth, the Coast Guard has also purchased an additional training center in Birmingham, Alabama.

Today’s hearing provides a forum to articulate where the Coast Guard is in pursuing the goals of Force Design 2028 and the path to successfully and completely implement all its objectives.  

The Government Accountability Office has carefully and extensively examined Coast Guard programs and management practices over the years. They bring an important perspective to the discussion about what proper stewardship of appropriated funds and responsible planning and administration of a large government agency should look like. I will be listening with a keen ear to the points Ms. McNeil makes and to any recommendations she has.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to once again state that the Coast Guard has failed to provide the Committee with statutorily required long-term acquisition planning documents for years on end. This persistent failure to meet legally mandated reporting requirements raises serious concerns about whether the Service is making appropriate spending decisions.

Congress recognizes the value the Coast Guard delivers and wants the Service to reach its fullest potential. The continued growth and investment of the Coast Guard is contingent upon continued investment in the Service by Congress. Clearer transparency and meaningful accountability of how the Coast Guard is setting its priorities, allocating its resources, and truly planning for its immediate and future needs are key to maintaining the levels of Congressional support necessary for the organization to continue to grow and meet all the demands for its services.

Click here for more information from today’s hearing, including video and witness testimony.