U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan stands with acting Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday during the after the commissioning ceremony for the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan stands with acting Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday during the after the commissioning ceremony for the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
A $300 million project to build a new Coast Guard base in Juneau for the icebreaker Storis likely will not be complete until at least 2029, the service’s top admiral said in a U.S. Senate hearing last week.
The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Kevin Lunday, testified Thursday in front of the U.S. Senate’s subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries, chaired by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.
During the hearing, Sullivan pushed Lunday on his timeline for work in Alaska. Congress approved almost $25 billion earlier this year for new Coast Guard construction, including hundreds of millions for work in Alaska.
In August, the Coast Guard commissioned the icebreaker Storis, a converted oilfield services ship, at a ceremony in Juneau. The Storis will be based in Juneau, the Coast Guard has said, but not until new facilities are built.
“Are we on time, on schedule?” Sullivan asked.
“We’re moving quickly to be able to execute that funding and have that pier and infrastructure there ready by 2029,” Lunday said.
The Coast Guard had previously said its target was 2028.
“They’ve talked about 2028 before with regard to Juneau and the Storis,” Sullivan said in a phone call with reporters afterward. “He did mention 2029, but part of my job is to make sure we have the money, make sure they make the decisions early, and impress them in oversight hearings like this, to get them to keep their timelines if they put them out there, but also try to move them closer in.”
Lunday was only recently confirmed to his position after President Donald Trump controversially fired Adm. Linda Fagan after the start of his term.
Sullivan said it’s only natural for a new appointee to play it safe.
“I think the default position is to be a little conservative on the timelines,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also pressed Lunday on his plans for a series of new icebreakers the Coast Guard intends to build in coming years.
Sullivan has been campaigning to have several medium icebreakers based in Alaska in addition to the Storis. Lunday was evasive when Sullivan asked him when he would make a decision and whether he would choose Alaska.
“As (my team) develop options, one of the first ones that I want them to present among a range of options for consideration … is for homeporting of up to four icebreakers in Alaska,” Lunday said. “Although we are still pending a decision, that’s clear guidance I’ve given to the team.”
Afterward, Sullivan said he tried to pin Lunday down on the issue because he sees it as important.
“I love the Coast Guard, but I have had real issues with how slow they are,” he said.
While Lunday didn’t make a firm commitment, Sullivan said he viewed the day as “progress.” Sullivan said he wants to see the ships in Alaska because basing them here has an economic benefit that he termed “a virtuous cycle” — the ships create demand for local shipyard work and stores to sell things to the Coast Guard, members of the Coast Guard and their families.
Housing any new arrivals remains an unsolved issue, he noted. Communities throughout Alaska are experiencing critical shortages of housing and child care.
“In almost every community, housing is an issue, and it’s an issue throughout the whole state,” he said.
“This is where we need to get the state, the cities, the boroughs also, to come to the table and say, ‘Hey, we have land here that we can provide. … We have financing that we can help incentivize housing,’” Sullivan said.
He said the Coast Guard is contributing financially for housing, but that he has encouraged elected officials to look for ways to ease the issue.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) arrives at Pier 46 on Coast Guard Base Seattle, Oct. 26, 2025. The crew of the Healy transited over 20,000 miles, supporting Operation Arctic West Summer and Operation Frontier Sentinel, protecting U.S. sovereign rights and territory, and promoting national security in the Arctic. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lieutenant Christopher Butters)
On a dreary November day in Seattle, the U.S. Coast Guard put its past and future on display.
Within sight of the Space Needle, three eye-catching red icebreakers towered over Pier 36. It was the first time since 2006 that the Coast Guard has had three active icebreakers in the same place at the same time.
In the coming years, that scene will become more common, and not just in Seattle. After years of underfunding, the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet is undergoing a massive expansion, with almost $9 billion for new ships.
On Tuesday, the U.S. government signed the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort — or ICE Pact — a three-nation agreement with Finland and Canada that will see some of those ships built in Finland, whose shipyards will train Americans to build more.
“It’s an exciting time to be a polar icebreaker sailor,” said Capt. Jeff Rasnake, commanding officer of the Polar Star, America’s only heavy icebreaker.
So many ships are about to join the Coast Guard’s fleet that the agency isn’t yet sure where it will put them all. The Coast Guard has earmarked millions for a port expansion in Seattle to accommodate three heavy icebreakers, plus another $300 million for Juneau to serve as a port for a medium icebreaker.
More space will be needed on top of that, and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said his intent is to have as many of the new ships based in Alaska as possible.
“We want home port decisions on these icebreakers sometime in early 2026,” he said. “That is my goal.”
Eric Boget, a research engineer aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20), prepares to throw a grappling hook to recover an Arctic Mobile Observing System (AMOS) mooring while Healy operating in the Arctic Ocean, July 21, 2025. Boget is a member of the scientific research team recovering data from the AMOS moorings. (U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Sappey)
The need for new icebreakers is clear: As the Earth warms amid climate change, no place is warming faster than the Arctic. Melting ice is opening new routes for shipping, places to mine and drill, and seas to fish or view from the deck of a cruise ship.
In many cases, control of those new routes is being disputed among nations.
“Right now, things are heating up in the Arctic, and not just on the ice,” said Capt. Kristen Serumgard of the icebreaker Healy.
Russia is expanding its military presence in the Arctic, including with icebreakers, and as NATO confronts Russian aggression in Europe, there’s been international concern that the United States and NATO should be prepared to match Russia in the Arctic as well.
China is operating significant numbers of icebreakers in the Arctic, as are European nations, each interested in maintaining their right to access the area.
“It’s a geopolitical hotbed up there,” Serumgard said.
Rasnake, who typically works in the comparatively calm Antarctic, said that “with lines being drawn and a lot of different contested (seafloor) land claims, it’s — I wouldn’t say the wild, wild West, but maybe the wild, wild North.”
Shipping traffic through the Arctic Ocean is on the rise, with more ships traveling Russia’s Northern Sea Route and the Canadian-American Northwest Passage each summer.
As yet, the Northwest Passage isn’t regularly used by commercial shipping, said Steve White, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Alaska, which monitors the area for safety risks.
While that’s the case, “we are seeing a trend of more and more traffic, though, going through the Bering Straits, both on the US side and on the Russian side,” he said.
With more ships comes more risk. On Sept. 6, the Dutch cargo ship Thamesborg ran aground in Franklin Strait, part of the Northwest Passage. The accident didn’t release any pollution and no one was injured, but it took 33 days for the ship to be freed and sent on its way.
The Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route each funnel through the Bering Strait, which is split between American and Russian control.
“The reason this is so important for people to understand is that the Bering Strait — you’ve only got about (51) miles between the US and Russia, and you have the biodiversity, the wildlife that’s there,” White said. “This comes at a time where we’re getting more storms, the communities are struggling up there with food security and the top priority, the salmon returns … the fabric of our Alaskan communities up there is under threat, and it’s under threat from what’s going on with the weather changing and increased traffic.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is the federal government’s nautical Swiss Army knife — it performs rescue operations, enforces fishing laws, stops drug smugglers, runs border patrols, performs safety inspections, anti-pollution patrols, counter-piracy patrols, and enforces America’s maritime laws.
The U.S. Navy runs submarines under the Arctic ice, but it doesn’t operate icebreakers. It leaves the Coast Guard to do that — on the Great Lakes, on American rivers, and in the Arctic and Antarctic.
But for years, the national icebreaker fleet has been underfunded.
When Nome, home to the endpoint of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, ran short of fuel in 2012, the U.S. Coast Guard struggled to muster a single icebreaker, the Healy, to escort a Russian icebreaking tanker to the town.
At the time, the Healy was the Coast Guard’s lone operating icebreaker. Soon afterward, it reactivated the Polar Star, which had been mothballed because it was old and needed maintenance.
While both ships continue to operate, they’re less capable than modern ships and have suffered mechanical breakdowns, some significant.
Last year, the Healy caught fire and had to abbreviate its summer patrol. While it returned to service in the fall and went on to discover a volcano-like mountain on the Arctic seafloor, it’s now due for an extended period of maintenance.
“She’s 25 years old and been breaking ice for 25 years, right? That is hard on a ship,” Serumgard said.
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Storis uses dynamic positioning to maintain its position near the Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, Aug. 5, 2025. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)
Two American icebreakers in the Arctic Ocean in 2025
If America’s icebreaking fleet is near a low ebb, this summer saw the first steps toward the planned resurgence.
As a stopgap until new ships arrive, Congress last year ordered the purchase of the Aiviq, an oilfield services ship designed to work in the Arctic Ocean.
Eight years ago, following a disaster that saw the Aiviq lose control of a drilling rig during a storm, the Coast Guard deemed the ship “not suitable for military service without substantial refit.”
Since then, the ship has been overhauled and the Coast Guard’s opinion has changed.
After Congress appropriated the money, the Coast Guard purchased the Aiviq, quickly converted it, and in August this year, commissioned it as the icebreaker Storis.
At the time of that commissioning, commanding officer Capt. Corey Kerns said the ship and its crew would “need to learn to crawl” before they could get fully up and running.
In addition, there were unanswered questions about how well the Storis would handle the kinds of storms that troubled the Aiviq.
In October, Kerns sat down for another interview after returning from the Arctic.
“One of the things that kind of surprised me was that it went smoother than maybe I would have expected,” he said.
“She was able to perform, get through the whole thing without any major issues,” Kerns said of the ship’s first patrol.
As a result, Kerns felt confident enough to guide the Storis into the Arctic Ocean, where it worked with the icebreaker Healy to shadow two Chinese research ships in parts of the ocean that the United States claims.
If China and Russia are present in the region, it behooves the United States to be there too, Kerns said in August.
“The ability to be present guarantees your ability to to maintain sovereignty. And that’s what we’re trying to get at here in the Arctic. We need more icebreakers to be present in our waters and be clear what is our waters,” he said.
The Coast Guard cutter Waesche, a “thin-hulled” ship, also monitored the Chinese ships. Both it and the Storis participated in Arctic Edge 2025, a military training operation near the Russian border that also included Canadian forces.
Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Kevin Rambo gives a demo of a machine gun aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis on Nov. 12, 2025, in Seattle. Four were mounted on the new Coast Guard icebreaker after its acquisition from a private offshore oilfield services company. (Photo by Tom Banse/For the Alaska Beacon)
There’s still work to be done with the Storis, Kerns said. It hasn’t been certified to host Coast Guard helicopters yet, and it hasn’t done a full icebreaking test.
“We got into the ice and we showed that she could break flat ice to some extent, at certain speeds, but … probably not a fully worthy test of capability in the ice, so we’re discussing that now,” he said.
Thirteen years ago, the Aiviq lost control of the drilling rig Kulluk, causing it to run aground on Kodiak Island. That disaster took place after rough seas flooded the Aiviq’s fuel tanks and caused it to lose power.
This summer, as the Storis sailed across the Gulf of Alaska, it again encountered rough seas.
“There were a few nights where you didn’t sleep as well, but it was perfectly safe,” Kerns said.
He said his crew are already overhauling equipment and preparing for next summer in the Arctic, working in conjunction with the Healy.
“We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the seafloors, so it’s kind of a really amazing area of exploration,” Serumgard said.
En route back to Seattle, the Healy was diverted to help search and rescue efforts in Southwest Alaska following Typhoon Halong, which devastated the region and left hundreds of people homeless.
In Seattle, the Polar Star was preparing to leave on a five-month roundtrip to Antarctica, where it will help supply research outposts across that continent.
Rasnake said he believes the Polar Star is in the best shape it’s been since being reactivated in 2013, and he looks forward to it possibly breaking the record of the most Antarctic missions by any Coast Guard icebreaker. That would come — if all goes well — in December 2026 or January 2027.
The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star is seen in Seattle on Nov. 12, 2025. (Photo by Tom Banse/For the Alaska Beacon)
A huge expansion of the fleet is on the horizon
If the Polar Star does break that record, it may not have many opportunities to expand on it. The Coast Guard’s first new heavy icebreaker since the Polar Star is now under construction in Mississippi.
Named the Polar Sentinel, it’s expected to be complete by 2030. The Republican-backed budget plan that President Donald Trump nicknamed the “Big Beautiful Bill” includes funding for two other heavy icebreakers after the Sentinel.
Thirteen other icebreakers were funded in that bill, said Sullivan, the Alaska senator.
“There’s funding for three to four Arctic Security mediums. Those are the target ones for our state. And then there’s 10 light icebreakers. Those are smaller. Those do work in the Great Lakes and other things like that,” he said.
The medium icebreakers, known as “Arctic Security Cutters,” are among 11 planned ships being built by two separate industry groups. Canada’s Davie Shipbuilding is planning to build five ships — two in Finland, and then three at a to-be-expanded Texas shipyard.
The second group, which includes American, Canadian and Finnish firms, will build two ships in Finland and a third simultaneously in the United States, then build three others in the United States.
The first five ships are expected to be delivered to the Coast Guard within 36 months of a contract being signed, meaning they could be patrolling the Arctic Ocean before the end of the decade.
The newly commissioned Storis will also need upgrades to complete its conversion from a civilian ship. First on the docket may be additional military communications gear, but Kerns said the Coast Guard is also considering how to fit more crew aboard.
In the longer term, Kerns — who has a nautical engineering background — is working with his crew on plans for a deeper refit that could allow the Storis to serve as a kind of “logistics ship.”
As currently built, it carries several large holds originally intended for drilling mud and other materials needed for oil wells at sea. Those could be repurposed, he said this month, and his crew is coming up with ideas for the ship’s first major refit, expected sometime after summer 2026.
The new ships and the changes to the Storis are only part of the Coast Guard’s plan in the coming years. Each ship will also need people and equipment ashore for maintenance and support. The Coast Guard is involved in an ongoing struggle to acquire acreage to expand its Seattle base, which the port authority is reluctant to cede.
Pier space at the Coast Guard’s Alameda base, in California, is also constrained.
“We’re looking for space in all possible areas,” said Capt. Brian Krautler, chief of operations for the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area.
The Big Beautiful Bill included $300 million to build a base in Juneau to host the Storis. Other places in Alaska — Seward, Kodiak, Nome, or Dutch Harbor — might also accommodate one or more of the new Arctic Security Cutters. Kodiak is home to the largest Coast Guard base in the country.
Speaking this week at the signing of the so-called ICE Pact, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that the Trump administration sees the expansion of the icebreaker fleet as a top priority.
“Today is a major milestone in the race to secure the Arctic for all of our countries,” she said. “The Arctic is the world’s last, most wild frontier, and our adversaries are racing to claim its strategic position and its rich natural resources for their own. If we give up that high ground, then we will condemn future generations to permanent insecurity, and we’re not going to let that happen on our watch.”
NOTN- Juneau officials are preparing to partner with the U.S. Coast Guard to help meet housing needs tied to the planned 2029 arrival of the icebreaker Storis.
Deputy Mayor Greg Smith said the Coast Guard has identified a deficit of 71 housing units for personnel.
“Juneau needs over 1000 units, if not closer to 1500 just for our population. But knowing that, making this a successful home port for the Storis is a tremendous need and priority for us.” Said Smith.
On Monday, the Assembly authorized the city manager to work with the Coast Guard on a memorandum of understanding, which is a formal document outlining the intent of two or more parties to cooperate on a project or transaction, and to consider city-owned property for potential development.
“The Coast Guard is going to put out a request for information, and ask local developers, We need this much housing, what could you offer? what can you provide to help fill this need?” Smith Said, “Our city manager said we also have some property that could go and potentially help address this need as well. She identified Pederson Hill as well as Telephone Hill as city owned land that could be used. It’s not simply for Coast Guard housing.”
The Coast Guard is expected to issue a request for information to local developers outlining housing needs. Smith said demonstrating city support is critical to ensuring the Storis is successfully homeported in Juneau and not relocated elsewhere.
The China-flagged research vessel JIDI operates approximately 265 miles northwest of Utqiagvik, Alaska, September 2, 2025. The Coast Guard Arctic District deployed USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) to monitor and query the vessel. (U.S. Coast Guard Courtesy Photo)
The U.S. Coast Guard shadowed two Chinese research ships operating in disputed waters within the Arctic Ocean this week, the Coast Guard announced Wednesday.
The icebreakers Ji Di and Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di were traveling more than 200 miles offshore of Utqiagvik, America’s northernmost town, in what’s known as the “extended continental shelf” under the International Law of the Sea Treaty.
Ordinarily, international law restricts a nation’s fishing, oil drilling and scientific exploration to within 200 nautical miles of its coast, in what’s known as its “exclusive economic zone.” Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a nation can extend that exclusive limit if the continental shelf — a place of generally shallower water — stretches beyond 200 miles.
More than 160 countries and the European Union have ratified the Law of the Sea agreement, but the United States has not, despite the urging of members of Alaska’s congressional delegation.
The agreement says foreign vessels may pass through extended continental shelf waters, but they must have the owner’s consent in order to perform scientific studies or seafloor mapping there.
The United States claims the extended continental shelf near its shorelines and in 2023 began the international process to have its claims recognized, but the United Nations committee that regulates the agreement has not finalized the American claims, a process that could take decades because the United States is not a party to the agreement.
Meanwhile, despite the lack of international recognition, the United States has continued to claim sovereignty over the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.
China, which operates more Arctic icebreakers than does the United States, has contended that the Arctic Ocean should remain open to free navigation.
This week, when the two Chinese research icebreakers crossed into the disputed area, the Coast Guard dispatched the icebreaker Healy, which was already operating in the Arctic Ocean under a different mission.
“They were pretty close to the standard 200 nautical mile EEZ boundary. They were outside of that by a few miles, which is directly over that portion that is being claimed right now … by the United States,” said Troy Bouffard, director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“It’s deliberate in several ways,” he said of the Chinese action. “It’s meant to get attention but not go over the line.”
He said some of China’s actions in the Arctic have been to “promote it as a global commons that belongs to everybody, and to minimize sovereign rights as much as possible. So that’s a pretty obvious reason why they would have done this at the location they did.”
Chief Petty Officer Travis Magee, assistant public affairs officer for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Arctic District, said that in cases like the ones that occurred this week, the typical response is to “monitor, and query the vessels” over the radio, frequently using a pre-prepared script.
The script he said, often goes like this:
“You are currently operating over the United States Extended Continental Shelf (ECS). Under international law, the United States has rights to conserve and manage the living and non-living natural resources of its ECS as well as to regulate marine scientific research by foreign scientists relating to its ECS. In all cases where marine scientific research is pursued on the Extended Continental Shelf, appropriate official channels must be used to obtain U.S. consent.”
The Coast Guard also flew a long-range patrol aircraft from Kodiak to shadow the two ships.
Rear Adm. Bob Little, commander of the Arctic District, said in a prepared statement that “the U.S. Coast Guard is controlling, securing and defending the northern U.S. border and maritime approaches in the Arctic to protect U.S. sovereignty, and Healy’s operations demonstrate the critical need for more Coast Guard icebreakers to achieve that.”
While the U.S. Navy frequently operates submarines in the Arctic Ocean, it does not have any icebreakers; the Coast Guard operates the federal government’s only icebreaking ships.
The recently approved Republican budget package known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” included billions of dollars for the Coast Guard to construct new heavy icebreakers.
The first of those ships is expected to enter service in 2030, though some medium-weight icebreakers are being planned and could arrive sooner.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) (left) sits moored next to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) at Coast Guard Base Seattle, Aug. 25, 2024. The Polar Star and Healy are routinely deployed to Arctic and Antarctic locations to support science research or help resupply remote stations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Chris Butters)
The U.S. Coast Guard announced Tuesday that it has awarded a $137 million contract for the first phase of a project intended to allow its Seattle base to host two new heavy icebreakers.
The contract, awarded to The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, covers dredging of the Coast Guard’s Slip 36 and construction of two ship berths capable of hosting the new icebreakers, formally known as Polar Security Cutters.
The first of those ships, the Polar Sentinel, is expected to be complete in 2030. When accepted into the Coast Guard, it will be the service’s first new heavy icebreaker since the Polar Star was commissioned in 1977.
The Coast Guard operates the federal government’s icebreaker fleet, and the Polar Star is key to supplying American research bases in Antarctica from its Seattle home port.
A second and third heavy icebreaker were fully funded with $4.3 billion included as part of the Republican budget package approved by Congress and President Donald Trump earlier this year.
The budget package also included $300 million for port construction in Juneau to support the newly commissioned Coast Guard icebreaker Storis, a converted oilfield services ship. Until that work is complete, the Storis will be homeported in Seattle.
The Republican budget package, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” includes billions of dollars for shoreside port facilities like those in Juneau and Seattle.
Additional phases of work are expected in Seattle, which is expected to be the home port of four new major Coast Guard cutters, the service said in a written statement.
