DHS Secretary Mullin’s Coast Guard Opportunities:

The U.S. Coast Guard, thanks in part to Sean Plankey’s efforts, is enjoying a generational infrastructure refresh. Obsolete or long-troubled Coast Guard shipbuilding programs are getting recalibrated, and billions in new shipbuilding programs are snapping into place, bolstered by a $25 billion investment from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

This is Mullin’s opportunity to get good headlines. Given the Trump Administration’s high-profile shipbuilding focus and shipbuilding-oriented executive orders, Secretary Mullin has an obligation to milk every possible public benefit from DHS shipbuilding efforts. If a shipyard with a Coast Guard contract cuts steel, breaks ground on a capital improvement, commissions a building, or christens a ship, Mullin must be there, in full-throated support of the President’s shipbuilding policies.

There’s a lot to celebrate. The multi-billion-dollar Icebreaker Collaboration Effort will boost America’s tiny icebreaker fleet, integrating 11 ships into two new classes of medium “Arctic Security” icebreakers. In the effort to bring icebreaker know-how to the United States, Davie Defense, a subsidiary of the London-based Inocea Group, is about to start construction on a billion-dollar icebreaker factory in Galveston, Texas. The Birdon Group, an Australian-based company, is ramping up the effort to build 27 Waterways Commerce Cutters and is planning to develop a new shipyard in Pensacola, Florida. Austal Ltd., another Australian company, is busy building a ship manufacturing facility to support the Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutter program.

With the Trump Administration cracking down on out-of-control or poorly managed procurement programs, Secretary Mullin also has an opportunity to lead the way in getting lemonade from a few shipbuilding lemons.

At Bollinger, the overbudget and behind-schedule Polar Security Cutter is still lagging, with at least 26 of the 85 modules needed to complete the ship completed or under construction. That sounds wonderful without context, but, given that production of the first eight modules was first authorized in July 2023, Bollinger’s icebreaker-building effort is bogged down and likely merits termination. At best, it needs a renegotiation or integration into the Ice Pact so this slow-motion shipbuilding disaster won’t drag down the Coast Guard’s ambitious shipbuilding program.

Likewise, Austal’s Offshore Patrol Cutter program is progressing well, but the company is beset by management turmoil. Over the past six months, Austal stock has tumbled by almost 38%, and concerns are growing that the company woefully underbid the Offshore Patrol Cutter to obtain a company-saving contract. Mullin may do well to take a big swing, either canceling the OPC program entirely or renegotiating, offering Austal much-needed liquidity for a U.S. ownership stake.

Outside of DHS, Mullin has an opportunity to join forces with Hung Cao, the dynamic, newly appointed Acting Secretary of the Navy. By coordinating on shipbuilding, ship repair and other shared mission sets, the two Administration “rookies” can do a lot of good.

Working together, the Department of Defense could fund DHS shipyard infrastructure and development of a much-needed West Coast “Annex” of DHS’s well-regarded (and oft-overlooked) ship repair yard in Baltimore. With Navy paying for shipyard improvements and a West Coast Annex, DHS could become the major maintenance provider of the Navy’s new frigate—a derivation of the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter—on both Coasts.

This step would help both the Coast Guard and the Navy. Given the DHS shipyard’s unique budget authorities, the Coast Guard Yard can operate as a business, offering cost-effective support to autonomous craft and other government assets. If West Coast facilities—the Coast Guard Yard Annex—is sized to accept modern U.S. Navy submarines and surface ships, DHS could, in time, get the yard nuclear certified and positioned to help the Navy overcome looming future maintenance challenges. It makes sense. DHS shipyard authorities are structured to provide optimal support for serial refits and to de-risk maintenance that is likely to see metastatic scope creep—two things that the Navy is struggling to manage.

Coast Guard Can Help DHS Secretary Mullin:

DHS Secretary Mullin has already demonstrated he is a talented communicator. Internally, he has set exactly the right tone. His first official Coast Guard visit was to Cape Disappointment Motor Lifeboat School, where he honored the late Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler Jaggers, a rescue swimmer who died in March, after a late-February rescue mission went terribly wrong.

He has hit all the right notes, highlighting the structural toll inflected by the recent shutdown, and, once the shutdown was resolved, he went through DHS Headquarters, high-fiving DHS workers who had gone weeks with no pay.

Secretary Mullin can clearly thread complex PR needles. But with the midterm elections looming, DHS Secretary Mullin is on the clock. A failure to quickly champion Coast Guard achievements and bolster the Trump Administration’s pro-shipbuilding efforts may set Secretary Mullen on a path to two tough years of real disappointment.