Some articles that might be of interest, but not something I’m ready to comment on.
A proposal to hand over all large cutters to the Navy. http://nextnavy.com/how-to-build-president-trumps-350-ship-navy-fast/. I think my friend may have “jumped the shark” here.
The Commandant talks about what we need to include in the new Polar Icebreaker. http://seapowermagazine.org/stories/20161129-icebreaker.html
And a bill to reform the Dept of Homeland Security. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hr6381ih/pdf/BILLS-114hr6381ih.pdf
Making nice with the Russians in the Arctic. http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2016/11/how-arctic-could-help-warm-us-russian-relations/133502/
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
Here is another: We are still very much in the alien migrant interdiction business. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/29/coast-guard-apprehends-most-cuban-migrants-in-decade.html
The Commandants brief comments concerning the ongoing and ever expanding duties in the polar regions are obvious to some and perhaps enlightening to others.
However, his comments concerning 75,000 Horsepower diesel electric icebreakers are a left over from another century. With that kind of thinking our Navy would still have black oil aircraft carriers, destroyers and diesel powered submarines.
Just imagining the 90,000 H.P. of diesel engines crammed into 500 feet of ship is difficult. The maintenance, manpower and continuing thirst for fuel, if anything, is not economical nor efficient. What he did not mention is these new icebreakers, because they are diesel electric are limited to half year operation. So in a thirty year expected life span they will have operated about fifteen years.