Press Release |
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Chairman Cummings Calls on ICGS to Account for Failures in the 123-foot Patrol Boat Program |
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| Washington, D.C. — U.S. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chairman of the House Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Committee, today called upon Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman (the companies that have been operating as the Integrated Coast Guard Systems team or "ICGS") to accept responsibility for the failure of the nearly $100 million ICGS effort to lengthen eight 110-foot patrol boats to 123 feet.
"It will continue to be my top priority, as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, to restore the $24 billion Deepwater Program to a steady course. As a nation, we cannot afford to allow the program's next 20 years to be burdened with the failures it has experienced during its first 5 years.
"While I will not comment upon any pending litigation between ICGS and the Coast Guard, our congressional investigations to date have revealed that buckling of the hulls has rendered the 123-foot Coast Guard patrol boats (the '123s') unsafe - requiring the Coast Guard to remove them from service and mothball them at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore. These ships, so critical to our homeland security, now await the removal of their electronic equipment before they are sent to scrap.
"While there may be other deficiencies noted in the DD-250 delivery documents for these ships - or discovered after the boats were delivered - we now believe that the hull failures are unlikely to be reparable at any reasonable cost.
"Even more disturbing to me, the removal of these patrol vessels from service has contributed to the Coast Guard's current 'mission gap' of some 25,000 hours.
"The 123s - like all of the other assets being acquired under Deepwater - are intended to ensure the safety of our homeland and to support the Coast Guard's other vital missions, including narcotics interdiction and life-saving search and rescue services. The failures in the Deepwater program that our investigations have brought to public light leave our nation more vulnerable and expose the men and women of the Coast Guard to unnecessary safety risks.
"These failures are unacceptable. The companies that make up the ICGS team are among the world's largest and most experienced defense contractors in the world. The Congress expects them to stand behind the quality of the critical assets that they have sold to the Coast Guard and the American people.
"Enactment of the Integrated Deepwater Program Reform Act (H.R. 2722), approved by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure last week, will be an important first step in our continuing effort to ensure the effective oversight of the Deepwater program.
"While this legislation advances though the Congress, we will continue to demand strict accountability from both the Deepwater contractors and the Coast Guard - and I believe that accountability for the failure of the 123 program should include return of the American taxpayers' money." ### |
