Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland (WA-10), questioned Vice Admiral Thomas Allan, Acting Deputy Commandant for Operations, on the urgent need for strong maritime infrastructure, modernization of the US Coast Guard, and cybersecurity readiness.
Strickland’s remarks are transcribed below, and can be viewed here:
Chairman Mike Ezell: The gentleman yields. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Strickland for five minutes.
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland: Thank you, Chairman Ezell and Ranking Member Carbajal. I represent Washington state, as you know, that has a large military and maritime industry. The Coast Guard provides critical capabilities to our national security and economy, and I’m deeply concerned – like all of my colleagues – about the repeated delays in modernization and the failure to get a Coast Guard Authorization Act across the finish line last Congress.
I want to ask specifically about the icebreakers, three of which are supposed to be in Seattle. One is scheduled, as you showed on your chart, 2030, 2031, and 2033.
As we look at some of the challenges we have with our shipbuilding capability, can you talk a bit about having a skilled workforce, having the facilities to build, and then the supply chain and how that may affect our ability to build these very, very important vessels?
Vice Admiral Thomas Allan: Yes ma’am. Thank you for the question. The Polar Securities are just our number one acquisition, and I think vital to the country. I always appreciate coming to this Committee because I always listen to the Committee talking about an industrial base and how it is failing to keep up with our ability to build ships.
One thing we know in the Coast Guard is we will not be able to fix the industrial base one contract at a time for each cutter. Every time we do that, we see design delays, we see delays in the workforce as we try to bring that on.
I am heartened by what’s going on at Bollinger Mississippi Shipyard for the Polar Security Cutter. They are at 90 percent – over 90 percent. 91.5, to be exact. To the design maturity, that’s a great thing.
We’re also got through the department ability to do prototype fabrication assessment on many of the parts that are going to be doing it. And when I say parts, these are giant parts, right? These are sixteen pre-fab and what we’ve learned was as we put those together, how we’re going to weld, how we’re going to treat the steel to make sure that the wells are part. And we are at a point where, if we put those pieces together, we are actually a greater tonnage than a 270-foot Coast Guard Cutter. So we’re making progress.
To your point though, we need a stable workforce. So signaling and continuing to fund – so we not only get PS Aid Number One but also PS Aid Number Two and Number Three – will keep that workforce engaged and delivering those ones that we need.
Strickland: Alright, thank you Vice Admiral. I want to pivot now to a quality-of-life issue that happened. The same week a GAO report came out urging the Coast Guard to take cybersecurity threats to our maritime transportation system more seriously, we all know that our two adversaries – Russia and the Chinese Communist Party – represent our biggest threats. The service actually suffered a data breach that delayed pay for over one thousand personnel. What actionable steps is the Coast Guard taking to meet the cyber threats. Both to take care of its own people and protect our maritime infrastructure?
Allan: Ma’am, thank you for that question. And I’ll tell you – I was one of those thousand people that didn’t get my paycheck.
When you do that – and just as a Vice Admiral, no one cares if I’m getting paid or not – but we know what the impacts are to an E4 that’s not getting their pay, that has a wife, that has a kid, and is expecting it.
Two things – and I was very proud of the service on this – we noticed this on Thursday and locked down the system to make sure there wasn’t any additional data. In almost every case, those thousand people were paid the next day, on a Friday. So, one – keeping trust with our people.
Two – there are some serious cyber deficits that we have, and we are looking to address it. For this system we’re putting additional safeguards in for how you log in – especially for those that have the ability to manipulate that system – and we’ll be done with that by March 14th. While we do that, we’ve got our cybersecurity teams that are providing overwatch of that particular system to make sure we do it. That said, we’ve got a lot of other systems, and we continue to work that because cyber is so important. Not only in our ability to get on the computer, but to operate our cutters and to make sure we work with industry.
Strickland: Oh, absolutely. And I just want to editorialize a bit and say that, you know, telling Russia to stand down – saying that we’re going to stand down against cybersecurity threats from Russia – makes no sense. We know that it’s a threat to our national security. It’s a threat to our utility grid, and actually can be a threat to our comms grid.
So thank you for that testimony. I yield back, Chairman.
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