The Commandant issued his state of the Coast Guard speech in DC on February 27, 2013. You can find it here: Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Papp’s State of the Coast Guard Address 2013

There is also a closely related document, the Commandant’s SITREP 2013, you can access here (Look in the column on the right side of the page): http://www.uscg.mil/seniorleadership/

I did not see anything surprising in either document, but they do provide what the Commandant might call a fix on where the service is. Despite the uncertainty of future budgets, the speech was optimistic, even inspiring, while acknowledging that the fiscal climate, like the weather, is beyond our control, and that we are in for some “uncertain and stormy seas.”

He spent a lot of time on changes in personnel qualification systems, emergency response, and Deployable Specialized Forces.

Below are a some highlights that I found particularly interesting.

“…We had a strong response to our Request for Proposals for the new Offshore Patrol Cutter, and we will soon announce the three finalists for that project.”

“Another big event for us this year is the move to our new Headquarters. It will be the first time in our over two centuries of service we’ve had a building – designed from the ground up – to be a Coast Guard Headquarters. It’s almost complete, and we move in a few short months.”

“The Armed Forces Qualification test scores for our new enlisted members lead the five military services, and well over half of our new members have college experience.”

“I am pleased to announce that next month we plan to release the first comprehensive Coast Guard Arctic Strategy. The strategy will focus on three main priorities:
1) Improving Arctic awareness, 2) Modernizing governance, and 3) Broadening partnerships.”

——

Below are some related news stories that provide background to the Commandant’s remarks:

The Navy League’s “Seapower” magazine reports, after the address, Admiral Papp reportedly told reporters UAVs were no longer a priority for the Coast Guard, but the Arctic is.

Progress on the new icebreaker: http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg9/newsroom/updates/icebreaker022813.asp

North East Passage (along the Arctic coast of Russia), 2012 was a busy year. http://www.casr.ca/as-arctic-council-northern-sea-route.htm

Fiercehomelandsecurity.com provides a breakdown of how the $295M FY2013budget reduction will be distributed among the various Coast Guard accounts.

Most will come out of operating expenses, the largest account, but reductions are generally spread to all accounts with the range of reductions being between 5.0 and 5.4%. That may not sound like a huge cut, but we are already well into FY2013, and since many, perhaps most, costs are fixed, or nearly so, those things that can be cut will be cut severely.

I don’t expect to be able to blog for a bit over a week. I’ll be back here on March 4.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has begun briefing the U.K. and other governments over the possible formation of an international consortium to develop and integrate systems on a maritime patrol version of the C-130 Hercules.   (Lockheed Martin UK)

The Day reports remarks by Secretary of DHS discussing the effects of sequestration on her department, including those on the Coast Guard.

Recently the Indian Coast Guard detained a Panamanian flag merchant vessel for running over a fishing vessel. There were no Coast Guard vessels or aircraft on scene when it happened, but they quickly identified the vessel and had it in custody within four hours, because of their Maritime Domain Awareness network.