US Senate Passes Bill For Arctic Coast Guard Icebreaker In Alaska

The US Senate has recently passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill, which includes $125 million to buy a privately owned icebreaker for the US Coast Guard to base in Alaska's capital city, Juneau.

That is reported by Alaska Public Media.

"This is really good news for Alaska. Really good news for America. And certainly good news for Southeast and the Juneau area," said Sen. Dan Sullivan in a call to reporters Thursday.

The Alaskan congressional delegation has worked for years to get the money to buy the icebreaker Aiviq. However, the US Coast Guard needs many more icebreakers. The Aiviq was intended to serve as a stopgap while the Coast Guard built a new fleet of icebreakers called Polar Security Cutters.

The new spending bill does not help with that matter. President Biden has requested $170 million in this year's budget for the construction of said ship, but Congress eliminated the funding.

In a response to the cut, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said: "They did cut it, but they didn't kill it. And that's what we were up against."