Music Matters
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

KNBA News - Short $1B Ice Breaker Advocates Consider Leasing, Sharing; WEIO Kicks off in Fairbanks

: courtesy Dan Bross

KNBA Morning Newscast for Thursday, July 16 2015

Short $1B, ice breaker Advocates Consider Leasing, sharing

By Liz Ruskin, APRN

Nothing highlights American disinterest toward the Arctic as much as the tiny inventory of U.S. icebreakers: One heavy-duty ship, one medium and one down for repair. Alaska leaders and some federal officials say the country can’t assert its national interests, or see the benefits of increased shipping and resource development in the Arctic, without more icebreakers.

Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft sounds a little embarrassed by the state of the icebreaking fleet.

“We have 8 times the GDP … of Russia. Russia has a fleet of over 25
ocean-going icebreakers. They’re building six new nuclear icebreaker. And
here we are trying to cobble together and maybe reactivate a 37-year-old
icebreaker, because that’s the best we can do. And I’m here to say we need
to do better,” said Zukunft.

For years, Alaska’s delegation to Congress has pleaded for money to build a
new icebreaker, and they’ve won appropriations of a few million dollars for
pre-construction work. But the Coast Guard says it needs six icebreakers,
and a single new ship is projected to cost a billion dollars or more,
roughly equal to the Coast Guard’s entire capital budget. Alaska
Congressman Don Young says next week he’ll offer a bill to promote
alternative funding.

“This is a problem. I’ve been trying to get an icebreaker. Lisa Murkowski’s
been trying to get an icebreaker. But Congress is not about to appropriate
a billion 400 million for an icebreaker. So we have to figure out to get
the money either from the Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard. Just not the
Coast Guard. A collective organization together to build us icebreakers,” said Young.

Young was speaking to an Arctic symposium in Washington.  Outside the
auditorium, he said the government should seek bids from the private sector
to build an icebreaker and lease it to the government, with the expense
divvied among several agencies. Young says he knows leasing is not the
Coast Guard’s top choice.

“Everyone wants to own their own ship. That’s, by the way, one of the
worst things we could do. You own a boat, you find out how much money you
lose on it. So if you’ve got somebody that’s going to lease it to you and
maintains it for you to standard, that’s the way I’d go,” said Young.

Some Coast Guard leaders, over the years, have questioned whether a leased
ship is appropriate for frontline government missions, where the Coast
Guard is asserting U.S. sovereignty. Admiral Zukunft, the current Coast
Guard boss, says the service can’t do as much with a leased ship.

“need to operate that platform beyond what it was designed to operate in a
given year, based on the mission demands that are being placed upon it,” said Zukunft.

For any lease-or-buy decision -- a house, a car, a ship -- a key factor is
how long you intend to keep the item. After a certain point, buying has the
advantage. Also, Zukunft says, budget rules essentially charge an agency
the whole cost of the lease in the first year.

“So from a business case, a lease option right now, does not provide us
an optimal return on investment for a platform that quite honestly we’ve
proven that we can maintain these for 35 or 40-plus years,” said Zukunft.

But, as with houses and cars, if you don’t have the money, buying isn’t
really an option. Sen. Lisa Murkowski this week plugged an idea of former
lieutenant governor Mead Treadwell. He says the United States could join
other countries to provide an icebreaker escort service. As he sees it,
with Canada, Finland, China, maybe Korea, and maybe Russia, the U.S. could
set up regular trans-polar convoys. Treadwell says it requires thinking of
the Arctic as a shared business asset, like a jointly owned canal.

“Suppose we told the ships of the world, ‘meet us at a Port Clarence every
Wednesday at noon. And there’s an icebreaker heading out to a port in
Iceland or a port in Norway,’” Treadwell said. “And you might pay a fee
like you pay a fee for a canal,” said Treadwell.

Treadwell’s concept couldn’t stand in for some of the Coast Guard’s
government missions, but Murkowski says, maybe it makes sense to focus on
the commercial service first.

----------------------------------------

World Eskimo-Indian Olympics kick off in Fairbanks

By Daysha Eaton, KYUK

  The 2015 World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, or WEIO, have kicked off. Competition began Wednesday at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks. WEIO runs through Saturday.