Coast Guard may get budget boost in 2004

A spokesman for House Transportation and Infrastructure Commitee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, said the White House made "a verbal commitment to make every possible effort to continue to increase the Coast Guard budget" when Young discussed the service's move into the Homeland Security Department in July.

Young agreed to back the move after the House bill was changed to elevate the Coast Guard within the new department and to affirm its non-security roles, such as boating safety.

"Young has been assured by the administration that the Coast Guard will be fully funded so it can do security and other missions," Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., told CongressDaily. The Coast Guard needs increases of $500 million to $1 billion a year for the next several years to overcome the effects of past underfunding and to upgrade the fleet and other systems in a 20-year, $11 billion project called Deepwater, Gilchrest said.

Congress is finalizing the Coast Guard's 2003 budget, which the administration requested at a record $7.3 billion, up from $5.7 billion in 2002. A Coast Guard spokesman said $1.3 billion of the requested increase is for new operational capacity, including $500 million for Deepwater.

Coast Guard Commandant Thomas Collins told the Reserve Officers Association in July that the Coast Guard faces "a capacity issue to deal with the full set of missions" that could take three years to solve. "We're in discussion with the administration to define exactly those levels," Collins said.