Coast Guard Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010--Resumed

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, which we have passed back to the House, with amendments. Hopefully, they will pass it later this evening, and it will be the first time we have gotten this authorization passed and the work that we have been doing for the last 4 years on reforming the Coast Guard's Deepwater Acquisition Program from the mistakes made in the past and setting on a new course will actually become law.

As the Presiding Officer knows, the Coast Guard is a vital agency for us in the Pacific Northwest, everything from maritime safety to protecting our environment to our fisheries and the important missions they carry out. Obviously, making sure the Coast Guard has the tools it needs to get the job done is very important.

I thank Senators Snowe, Rockefeller, and Hutchison for their hard work and for Members on both sides of the aisle for working on this legislation.

I said it has important acquisition reforms, and I wish to mention a few of those because the Deepwater program, with its acquisitions, ran into many problems.

First and foremost, the Coast Guard will return to its appropriate competitive procurement practices. This legislation ends what was an industry self-certification process, and it codifies the very rigorous process that the Coast Guard should have with the Major System Acquisition Manual. It establishes the right leadership and oversight for that and, an important aspect, I think, of all procurements related to acquisitions of this size, analyses of alternatives conducted by an independent third party.

This legislation also has other important safeguards for oilspill prevention and for fishing vessel safety, as the Presiding Officer knows, because one of the provisions in this legislation is to require a tug escort of double-hulled tanks in Prince William Sound, something the Presiding Officer, the Senators from Alaska, Mr. Begich and Ms. Murkowski, asked be included in the bill.

This is important legislation, as we can see from the gulf incident and from incidents before. We obviously have to have large vessels escorted in and out of sensitive areas. I appreciate the leadership of the Senators from Alaska on this legislation.

It also adds new protections to the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the State of Washington, making sure it is protected from vessels that pose an oilspill threat.

It also extends the important oilspill response assets through Washington's very vulnerable Strait of Juan de Fuca making sure that it, too, is more protected and has more resources to deal with incidents in the case of oilspills.

Finally, there is a new requirement for fishing vessel safety designed to protect the life and welfare of those fishermen who risk their lives to bring seafood to our tables. It requires that large fishing vessels get a safety certification from independent third parties, and it mandates that smaller fishing vessels meet the same Coast Guard safety standards as recreation vessels.

This is important because we know our fishing vessels take great risk in providing catch to us in the product they bring to market. But it is important we do so in a safe and responsible fashion. Having this type of independent safety requirements will be much needed.

It allows the Alaska-Washington pollock fleet to replace their boats to help meet the new safety standards. As the President knows, the fishing fleets for Washington and Alaska are large operations. The pollock fishery alone is over a billion-dollar industry. Making sure these vessels operate in a safe manner is critical for our industries to continue to succeed.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his input and for my colleagues on the Coast Guard Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee and the committee at large for their help in getting this legislation passed.

As I said, it has been nearly 4 years in the making to get this important legislation through Congress. It comes at a time when we continue to want the Coast Guard to have the best resources to meet the missions and requirements of their job but to do their acquisition in a responsible way, to right the wrongs that has been in the Coast Guard acquisition process at the beginning of the Deepwater program, to make sure there is oversight and third-party evaluation of that, and to make sure, as I said, that this bill establishes new laws on oilspill prevention and on fishing vessel safety so we
can continue to operate in these pristine waters in a safe and effective manner.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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