Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (PSC) and Arctic Security Cutter (ASC) Icebreaker Programs: Background and Issues for Congress

The size of the Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker fleet and Coast Guard programs for building new polar icebreakers have been oversight matters for Congress for many years. A 2023 Coast Guard fleet mix analysis concluded that the service will require a total of eight to nine polar icebreakers, including four to five heavy polar icebreakers and four to five medium polar icebreakers, to perform the Coast Guard’s polar (i.e., Arctic and Antarctic) missions in coming years. The Coast Guard’s operational polar icebreaker fleet currently consists of one heavy polar icebreaker, Polar Star, and two medium polar icebreakers, Healy and Storis. Polar Star entered service in 1976 and is now well beyond its originally intended 30-year service life. Healy entered service in 2000. Storis was built in 2012 to serve as a commercial Arctic oil-exploration support ship. It was purchased by the Coast Guard in 2024 and converted into a Coast Guard medium polar icebreaker. It entered service with the Coast Guard in 2025 and was renamed Storis. To recapitalize and expand its polar icebreaking fleet, the Coast Guard is procuring new heavy polar icebreakers called Polar Security Cutters (PSCs) and new medium polar icebreakers called Arctic Security Cutters (ASCs). Polar Star is to be retired when new PSCs enter service. ASCs will be smaller and individually less expensive to procure than PSCs. The Coast Guard initiated the PSC program in its FY2013 budget submission. In April 2019, the Coast Guard awarded a contract for designing and building up to three PSCs to Halter Marine Inc. of Pascagoula, MS, a shipyard that was then owned by Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering. In November 2022, ST Engineering sold Halter Marine to Louisiana-based Bollinger Shipyards. The former Halter Marine is now called Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding. Subsequent to the April 2019 contract award, the PSC program fell years behind schedule, in large part due to the time needed to complete the design of the ship. The first PSC was originally projected to be delivered in 2024 but is now projected to be delivered no earlier than 2030. Much of the delay in the delivery date occurred prior to Bollinger’s November 2022 purchase of Halter. On December 26, 2025, the Coast Guard awarded contracts for the construction of up to six ASCs. Rauma Marine Constructions Oy (RMC) of Rauma, Finland, was awarded a contract to build up two ASCs, with the first to be delivered in 2028. Bollinger Shipyards was awarded a contract to build up to four ASCs at the firm’s shipyard in Houma, LA, with the first to be delivered in 2029. RMC, Bollinger, Seaspan Shipyards of North Vancouver, Canada, and ship design and engineering firm Aker Arctic Technology Oy of Helsinki, Finland, partnered to compete for the contracts. RMC and Bollinger will build the ASCs to a design based on the Multi-Purpose Icebreaker (MPI), an icebreaker design developed by Seaspan and Aker Arctic. Prior to the FY2025 reconciliation act (H.R. 1/P.L. 119-21 of July 4, 2025, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA), the PSC program had received a total of about $1.7 billion in procurement funding. The FY2025 reconciliation act provided an additional $4.3 billion in procurement funding for PSC program and $3.5 billion in procurement funding for the ASC program. The combination of Healy, Storis, up to three PSCs, and up to six ASCs would produce a future polar icebreaking fleet of up to 11 ships, including up to three heavy polar icebreakers (the three PSCs) and up to eight medium polar icebreakers (Healy, Storis, and six ASCs). Issues for Congress regarding Coast Guard polar icebreakers include the risk of cost growth, schedule delay, or technical problems in the PSC and ASC programs; Coast Guard intentions regarding the procurement of a fourth or fifth PSC, so as to meet the stated requirement (following the retirement of Polar Star) for a total of four or five heavy polar icebreakers; the total number of ASCs that will eventually be built, given the two existing medium polar icebreakers (Healy and Storis) and the stated requirement for a total of four or five medium polar icebreakers; whether required numbers of polar icebreakers would increase, and if so, by how many ships, if Greenland were to become part of the United States; and whether the building some ASCs in Finland should serve as a model for building ships for the U.S. Navy in foreign shipyards. The Coast Guard also operates Great Lakes icebreakers that are much smaller than the Coast Guard’s polar icebreakers. The Coast Guard’s FY2024 budget initiated a program for procuring a new Great Lakes icebreaker (GLIB) that would have capabilities similar to those of Mackinaw, the Coast Guard’s sole existing heavy GLIB. The Coast Guard estimates the total procurement cost of the ship at about $350 million.