Coast Guard Deepwater Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress

Abstract

The Integrated Deepwater Systems (IDS) program, or Deepwater program for short, is a $24-billion, 25-year project to replace and modernize the Coast Guard's aging fleet of deepwater-capable ships and aircraft. It is the largest and most complex acquisition effort in Coast Guard history, encompassing 91 new cutters, 124 new small surface craft, and 244 new or modernized airplanes, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Administration's annual funding requests and overall approach for the program. The Coast Guard is pursuing the Deepwater program as a system-of-systems acquisition project, under which a combination of cutters, patrol boats, aircraft, and supporting assets is to be procured as a single, integrated package. To execute this system-of-systems acquisition approach, the Coast Guard is using a lead system integrator (LSI) -- a private-sector entity responsible for designing, building, and integrating the various elements of the package. Potential options for Congress regarding the Deepwater program include but are not limited to the following: continuing with the program as currently planned; instituting additional or stricter reporting requirements; compressing the acquisition period from 25 years to 15 or 10 years; replacing ICGS as the LSI; dropping the use of an LSI in favor of direct Coast Guard management and integration of the program; and replacing the Deepwater program with a series of separate procurement programs for replacing individual classes of cutters, boats, and aircraft. The Coast Guard's FY2007 budget requested $934.431 million for the Deepwater acquisition program. The conference report (H.Rept. 109-699 of September 28, 2006) on H.R. 5441/P.L. 109-295, the FY2007 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations act, provides a total $1,144.566 million in FY2007 funds for the Deepwater program.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 18, 2006
Accession Number
ADA460708

Entities

People

  • Ronald O'Rourke

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • C4I
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Aircrafts
  • Coast Guard
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Contracts
  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • Governments
  • Helicopters
  • Homeland Security
  • Information Systems
  • National Security
  • Procurement
  • Program Management
  • Security
  • System Of Systems
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Maritime Security/Maritime Homeland Security
  • Public Financial Management and Budgeting

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy