Counterplans General Stuff

Egypt

Egypt economy link

Clearing sea lanes diverts vital shipping traffic from the Suez Canal – threatens Egypt’s economy

Astill, 12 - appointed Political Editor and Bagehot columnist in 2012. He joined The Economist as International Security Editor in 2004 (James, “The melting north” 1/16, The Economist,

http://www.economist.com/node/21556798

Yet the melting Arctic will have geostrategic consequences beyond helping a bunch of resource-fattened countries to get fatter. An obvious one is the potentially disruptive effect of new trade routes. Sailing along the coast of Siberia by the north-east passage, or Northern Sea Route (NSR), as Russians and mariners call it, cuts the distance between western Europe and east Asia by roughly a third. The passage is now open for four or five months a year and is getting more traffic. In 2010 only four ships used the NSR; last year 34 did, in both directions, including tankers, refrigerated vessels carrying fish and even a cruise liner.

Asia's big exporters, China, Japan and South Korea, are already investing in ice-capable vessels, or planning to do so. For Russia, which has big plans to develop the sea lane with trans-shipment hubs and other infrastructure, this is a double boon. It will help it get Arctic resources to market faster and also, as the NSR becomes increasingly viable, diversify its hydrocarbon-addicted economy.

There are risks in this, of dispute if not war, which will require management. What is good for Russia may be bad for Egypt, which last year earned over $5 billion in revenues from the Suez Canal, an alternative east-west shipping route. So it is good that the regional club, the Arctic Council, is showing promise. Under Scandinavian direction for the past half-decade, it has elicited an impressive amount of Arctic co-operation, including on scientific research, mapping and resource development.

Capitalism

AT: No alt spillover

Achievability and viability are distinct concepts - Fiat should allow us to overlook questions of achievability. Instead we should debate whether our alternative is a viable vision for social change.

Wright, 13 - Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Erik, “Transforming Capitalism through Real Utopias” American Sociological Review78.1 (Feb 2013): 1-25, Proquest)//DH

The third task of an emancipatory theory is developing an account of alternatives, both for specific institutions and for macro-structures of society. Alternatives can be evaluated in terms of their desirability, their viability, and their achievability. If you worry about desirability and ignore viability or achievability, then you are just a plain utopian. Exploration of real utopias requires understanding these other two dimensions. The viability problem asks: If we could create this alternative, would we be able to stay there or would it have such unintended consequences and self-destructive dynamics that it would not be sustainable? Achievability asks of a viable alternative: How do we move from here to there?

At this particular moment in history, I think it is especially important to focus on the viability problem. It might seem sensible to begin by establishing whether an alternative is really achievable and only then discuss its viability. Why waste time exploring the viability of unachievable alternatives? It turns out that the achievability problem is simply too difficult, at least if we want to understand whether something might be achievable beyond the immediate future. What public policy innovations and institutional transformations might be achievable in, say, 2040? There are too many contingencies to even begin to answer that question in an interesting way. But there is an even more fundamental reason why I think the question of viability should have priority over the question of achievability: developing credible ideas about viable alternatives is one way of enhancing their achievability. People are more likely to mobilize around alternatives they believe will work than around alternatives they think are pie in the sky. Moreover, such widely circulated discussions may enhance cultural resonance for actions in line with such viable ideas. Viability affects achievability. This reflects an interesting aspect of the notion of the "limits of possibility" in social contexts in contrast to the natural world. Before Einstein demonstrated that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, it was still true that the speed of light was the absolute limit of possibility. The reality of those limits of possibility did not depend on their discovery. Limits of social possibility are not quite like that because beliefs about the limits of social possibility are one of the things that affect what in fact becomes possible. Evidence for the viability of alternatives has the potential to shape such beliefs.

Case

Solvency

1nc FL

Alt Causes – Can’t build icebreakers until port are developed

Gunnarsson 13 – PhD in geochemistry from Johns Hopkins University, Director of the Centre for High North Logistic, Faculty of Natural Research Sciences at the University of Akureyri (Bjørn , “The Future of Arctic Marine Operations and Shipping Logistics”) http://www.chnl.no/publish_files/Ch_2_Gunnarssons_Paper.pdf //Laura T

Adequte port infrastructure and support facilities for commercial shipping such as deep water access, places of refuge, marine salvage, port reception facilities for ship-generated waste, and towing services are rarely available in the Arctic. In recent years, however, Russian Arctic ports in the Barents Sea area, including the deep-water port of Murmansk, have expanded significantly and are providing increased services due to increased ore, coal and oil production and transport. Some other ports in satisfactory condition are located in the Kara Sea, including the port of Dudinka on the Yenisei River, but ports further east – on the shores of the Laptev, the East Siberian, Chukchi, and Bering seas – are in very poor condition and only support the basic needs of local settlements. Even if Russian Arctic ports did provide better services and facilities, draft limitations make these ports and harbors inaccessible for larger cargo ships sailing on the NSR. These ships cannot sail into these ports for services, to load or unload cargo, or in case of trouble as they would run aground because the harbors are too shallow. This fact should be a reminder that future support facilities for cargo ships and the extraction industries need to include floating units, far removed from the shallow Arctic coastline. Loose infrastructure and mobile assets (vessels that move within the Arctic) need to be considered. Such floating support units give added flexibility since they can be relocated if needed. A floating LNG plant was even considered as one option for gas from Yamal to provide tankers with deep-water access to the plant.

Icebreakers aren’t sufficient

O’Rourke 14- specialist in naval affairs for the Congressional Research Service (Ronald, “Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress”, Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41153.pdf)//WK

Arctic waters do not necessarily have to be ice free to be open to shipping. Multiyear ice can be over 10 feet thick and problematic even for icebreakers, but one-year ice is typically 3 feet thick or less. This thinner ice can be more readily broken up by icebreakers or ice class ships (cargo ships with reinforced hulls and other features for navigating in ice-infested waters). However, more open water in the Arctic has resulted in another potential obstacle to shipping: unpredictable ice flows. In the NWP, melting ice and the opening of waters that were once covered with one-year ice has allowed blocks of multiyear ice from farther north, or icebergs from Greenland, to flow into potential sea lanes. The source of this multiyear ice is not predicted to dissipate in spite of climate change. Moreover, the flow patterns of these ice blocks are very difficult to predict, and they have floated into potential routes for shipping. Thus, the lack of ice in potential sea lanes during the summer months can add even greater unpredictability to Arctic shipping. This is in addition to the extent of ice versus open water, which is also highly variable from one year to the next and seasonally. The unpredictability of ice conditions is a major hindrance for trans-Arctic shipping in general, but can be more of a concern for some types of ships than it is for others. For instance, it would be less of a concern for cruise ships, which may have the objective of merely visiting the Arctic rather than passing through and could change their route and itinerary depending on ice conditions. On the other hand, unpredictability is of the utmost concern for container ships that carry thousands of containers from hundreds of different customers, all of whom expect to unload or load their cargo upon the ship’s arrival at various ports as indicated on the ship’s advertised schedule. The presence of even small blocks of ice or icebergs from a melting Greenland ice sheet requires slow sailing and could play havoc with schedules. Ships carrying a single commodity in bulk from one port to another for just one customer have more flexibility in terms of delivery windows, but would not likely risk an Arctic passage under prevailing conditions.

Takes decades to solve enough to access their presence impact

Ebinger, 9 – director of the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings Charles, “The geopolitics of Arctic melt” International Affairs 85: 6 (2009) 1215–1232)//DH

Technology is a key barrier to Arctic access in other ways. Icebreakers, many nuclear powered, are necessary for presence and power projection in the region year-round. The various Arctic nations have widely divergent capabilities. For example, Russia has 20 icebreakers; Canada has 12, and is working on budgeting for 8 more; the US has, to all intents and purposes, just one functional icebreaker. These ships take eight to ten years to build, and cost approximately $1 billion each. The global economic crisis has, however, put a strain on budgets, and icebreaker fleets are unlikely to expand rapidly in the short term. Nonetheless, even if the US started building tomorrow it would long remain far behind other Arctic states such as Russia and Canada, taking decades and at least $20 billion to catch up.

Impossible to speed up the timeframe

O’Rourke 14 – Specialist in Naval Affairs

(Ronald, June 5, 2014, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf, JZG)

Time Line for Acquiring New Polar Icebreaker Another potential issue for Congress concerns the time line for acquiring a new polar icebreaker, which appears to have become less certain in the FY2015 budget submission. In the FY2013 budget submission—the submission that initiated the project to acquire the ship—DHS stated that it anticipated awarding a construction contract for the ship “within the next five years” and taking delivery on the ship “within a decade.”46 In the FY2014 budget submission, DHS stated that it anticipated awarding a construction contract for the ship “within the next four years.”47 In the Coast Guard’s FY2015 budget-justification book, the entry for the polar icebreaker program does not make a statement as to when a construction contract for the ship might be awarded.48 At a March 26, 2014, hearing on the proposed FY2015 budgets for the Coast Guard and maritime transportation programs before the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Admiral Robert Papp, the Commandant of the Coast Guard at the time, testified that “It’s going to be tough to fit a billion dollar icebreaker in our five-year plan without displacing other things,” that “I can’t afford to pay for an icebreaker in a $1 billion [per year capital investment plan] because it would just displace other things that I have a higher priority for,” and that “I still believe firmly, we need to build a new one but we don’t have [the] wherewithal right now, but doing the preliminary work should inform decisions that are made three, four, five, maybe 10 years from now.”49

EXT: Alt Causes

Alt causes – lack of bases and weather hardened ships

Slattery and Coffey 13 - Brian Slattery is a Research Assistant in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, and Luke Coffey is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Davis Institute, at The Heritage Foundation (“Strengthen the Coast Guard’s Presence in the Arctic” 4/2, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/strengthen-the-us-coast-guard-in-the-arctic)//JV

More Than Breaking the Ice

The USCG should plan to extend its reach in the Arctic not only with its icebreakers but also with operating bases, aviation assets, and vessels hardened to withstand the harsh conditions of the region. Currently, the USCG operates only one forward-operating location (FOL)—in Barrow, Alaska, and then only during the summer season. This location currently has a helicopter hangar in need of serious repair.[5] For the USCG to field a more serious presence above the Arctic Circle will require updated facilities.

The USCG has already decided that its new National Security Cutter (NSC) will manage an increase in traffic and activity in the region.[6] In the fiscal year 2013 presidential budget request, long-lead funding for the seventh and eighth NSCs was removed, which would effectively halt production of these vessels. The Administration has given no explanation for this reduction, and the USCG has not reduced its required fleet size of eight NSCs.

The NSC platform brings a diverse set of capabilities and can perform a broad range of missions from blue-water patrolling to search and rescue. While these vessels cannot penetrate ice-covered water, they can deploy helicopters and unmanned rotary-wing aircraft to perform surveillance and search-and-rescue missions at a distance.[7] This ability to operate at a distance is imperative, as the USCG’s abilities are severely limited by the location of its assets below the Arctic Circle.

Current port infrastructure can’t accommodate Coast Guard presence

Le Mière and Mazo 13 -- Senior Research Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and IISS Consulting Senior Fellow for Environmental Security and Science Policy and Consulting Editor, Survival (Christian* and Jeffrey**, “Arctic Opening: Insecurity and Opportunity,” Adelphi Series 53:440, Taylor and Francis Online)BC

There is also little commercial infrastructure that could be used in an emergency. Nome, on the west coast of Alaska (just south of the Arctic Circle), has a small harbour that can host vessels with a draught of just six metres, on a 50-metre pier. This is insufficient in depth to service the USCG’s longendurance cutters (such as the Hamilton and Legend classes) and insufficient in length to service the medium-endurance cutters (such as the Famous and Reliance classes), although the length restrictions should be less of a problem than the depth. A pier and loading facility north of the Bering Strait, usually used to support mining operations, can be used, but larger vessels have to anchor offshore; resupply of a USCG cutter, therefore, would likely involve vertical replenishment through the use of a helicopter while the vessel remained at anchor some 12nm offshore. Commercial airports in Nome, Barrow and Prudhoe Bay can act as resupply and refuelling stations for USCG equipment, but not as bases. Only very limited attempts have been made to remedy the situation: in July 2013, it was announced that the USCG would be opening a forward-operating location north of the Bering Strait in Kotzebue, in northwestern Alaska. However, the location will only be available seasonally and will consist only of one MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter flying out of the Alaska Air National Guard Hangar in the city.3 Given these capability gaps and infrastructural weaknesses, the USCG strategy is explicit in laying out the service’s limited objectives in the region over the coming decade: to improve awareness, modernise governance and broaden partnerships. These objectives hint at the difficulties that any one service, even one of the most powerful coastguards in the world, has when operating in the Arctic; the goals of improving awareness and broadening partnerships, which highlight both international cooperation and collaboration with indigenous groups, are essentially burden sharing to ensure a greater provision of security without a significant investment in facilities or equipment. The USCG strategy, therefore, highlights the need for a greater constabulary presence and focus in and on the Arctic, while also underlining the insufficient capabilities currently in place to accomplish this goal.

Funding Solvency

Funding uncertainty slashes plan solvency

Caldwell 11 – director of Homeland Security and Justice (December 2011, “Requirements, Icebreakers, and Coordination with Stakeholders,” Transportation Infrastructure U.S. Government Accountability Office, http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/586574.pdf) mj

The Coast Guard faces overall budget uncertainty, and it may be a significant challenge for the Coast Guard to obtain Arctic capable resources, including icebreakers. For more than 10 years, we have noted Coast Guard difficulties in funding major acquisitions, particularly when acquiring multiple assets at the same time. For example, in our 1998 report on the Deepwater program, we noted that the agency could face major obstacles in proceeding with that program because it would consume virtually all of the Coast Guard’s projected capital spending.1 In our 2008 testimony on the Coast Guard budget, we again noted that affordability of the Deepwater acquisitions would continue to be a major challenge to the Coast Guard given the other demands upon the agency for both capital and operations spending.2 In our 2010 testimony on the Coast Guard budget, we noted that maintaining the Deepwater acquisition program was the Coast Guard’s top budget priority, but would come at a cost to operational capabilities.3 This situation, of the Deepwater program crowding out other demands, continued, and in our report of July this year we noted that the Deepwater program of record was not achievable given projected Coast Guard budgets.4

1GAO, Coast Guard Acquisition Management: Deepwater Project’s Justification and Affordability Need to be Addressed More Thoroughly, Given the challenges that the Coast Guard already faces in funding its Deepwater acquisition program, it unlikely that the agency’s budget could accommodate the level of additional funding (estimated by the High Latitude Study to range from $4.14 billion to $6.9 billion) needed to acquire new icebreakers or reconstruct existing ones.

This means that it is unlikely that the Coast Guard will be able to expand the U.S. icebreaker fleet to meet its statutory requirements as identified by the High Latitude Study. As we reported in 2010, This analysis examined the impact that financing a new polar icebreaker would have on Coast Guard operations and maintenance activities, among others. The report found that given the Coast Guard’s current and projected budgets, as well as its mandatory budget line items, there are insufficient funds in any one year to fully fund one new polar icebreaker. Additionally, though major acquisitions are usually funded over several years, the incremental funding obtained from reducing or delaying existing acquisition projects would have significant adverse impact on all Coast Guard activities.

The Commandant of the Coast Guard has recognized these budgetary challenges, noting that the Coast Guard would need to prioritize resource allocations, while accepting risk in areas where resources would be lacking. Given that it takes 8-10 years to build an icebreaker, and the Coast Guard has not yet begun the formal acquisition process, the Coast Guard has already accepted some level of risk that its statutory mission requirements related to icebreakers will continue to go unmet.

Warming Turn

Icebreaking accelerates the loss of ice sheets – independently triggers climate tipping events

Leitzell 12 – science writer and press officer of communications for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (April 2012, Katherine, “Are icebreakers changing the climate?” National Snow & Ice Data Center, http://nsidc.org/icelights/2012/04/12/are-icebreakers-changing-the-climate/) mj

In summer months, icebreaking ships head north into the Arctic Ocean, tearing through the sea ice and leaving trails of open water in their wakes. Readers occasionally write in to ask us whether the trails left by these ships contribute to the melting of sea ice.

Breaking trail

Arctic sea ice reflects most of the sun’s rays, helping to keep the Arctic and the whole Northern Hemisphere cool. Open water has a lower albedo —or reflectivity—than sea ice, and so it absorbs more heat from the sun. Researchers have found that as Arctic sea ice melts in summer, leaving more areas of open water, the open water absorbs more of the sun’s energy, warming the water and melting more ice. This is one of the positive feedback loops that scientists say could lead to increased warming and sea ice loss in the Arctic. NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said, “Even in the summer, when the ice is melting, sea ice reflects at least 50 percent of the sun’s energy. The ocean only reflects about 10 percent of the sun’s energy, and 90 percent is absorbed, warming the ocean and the atmosphere.”

It makes sense that a strip of open water left by an icebreaker would absorb more heat from the sun, and melt away the sea ice along that trail. Meier said, “It’s certainly true locally, that the open water in the wake of an icebreaker absorbs more of the sun’s energy than the ice around it.” But what is the effect on the ice cover as a whole?

How much ice does an icebreaker break?

Meier decided to crunch some numbers and find out. While his numbers are an estimate, he said, they provide a helpful comparison of just how much icebreakers might contribute to summer ice loss.

Meier said, “In late June, when the sun’s energy is strongest, the total sea ice extent is around 10 million square kilometers or 3.9 million square miles. An icebreaker cruising through the ice for 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and leaving an ice-free wake of 10 meters (33 feet) would open an area of water 10 square kilometers (3.9 square miles) over the entire cruise.

Biodiversity Turn

Noise from ice-breakers kills marine species

Tedsen et al 14 - Coordinator of Ecologic Institute's Arctic program (Elizabeth, “Arctic Marine Governance Opportunities for Transatlantic Cooperation”) Springer. http://download.springer.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/static/pdf/966/bok%253A978-3-642-38595-7.pdf?auth66=1405449251_9b59954d64eefdf63ad4878c6c347b7c&ext=.pdf// Laura T

The use of ice-breakers can affect ice habitats and also create considerable noise, as can air traffic noise that may occur during transport of logistics supplies to the offshore installations and can frighten animals, causing displacement and disrupting feeding schedules. Large increases in ocean vessel traffic to support hydrocarbon development will raise the number of bird and animal strikes and disturb wildlife (Wolf 2007). Fish and marine mammals both are affected by noise, the effects of which can extend tens of kilometres from the source, particularly by sounds generated from seismic exploration (NRC 2003). For instance, in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, bowhead whales have been observed to change swimming direction in response to noise sources up to 30 kilometres away. Whale hunters in northern Alaska report that they must travel farther offshore to find whales, a change attributed to the displacement of whales from near-shore areas by industrial noise (AMAP 2007). Species such as whales, walruses, and seals are sensitive to man-made sounds and research shows they move away from industrial noises (AMAP 2007), even though such avoidance behaviour is often temporary. Further, since marine mammals rely on hearing to locate prey, seismic activities could drive animals away from important feeding sites Hydrocarbon-related transportation and other activities create pressures for improving infrastructure, which may cause fragmentation of both maritime and terrestrial habitats. Many animals have dense seasonal aggregations on breeding grounds, along migratory pathways, or along the ice edges and in open water polynyas in the sea ice, making them temporarily vulnerable to even localised incidents. Rigs, drill ships, and offshore pipelines also tend to impair migration routes. Even without pollution or accidents, oil and gas activities can reduce the wilderness character of a region.

AT: Environment

Increased Coast Guard presence can’t solve the environment – empirics go negative

Smith ’14 – writer for Alaskan Media(Matthew, “Coast Guard Says Its Increased Arctic Presence Will Have ‘No Significant’ Environmental Impact” May 7^th, http://www.alaskapublic.org/2014/05/07/coast-guard-says-its-increased-arctic-presence-will-have-no-significant-environmental-impact/

The U.S. Coast Guard has operated in the Arctic for more than a century, but as the maritime agency plans for an increased presence in the region, its taking stock of what its environmental impact will be in the Arctic in the years to come.

Mike Dombkowski is on the team drafting the Coast Guard’s new environmental assessment for Alaska’s District 17, which was released Tuesday. The document looks at what increased training and patrols in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas will mean for arctic ecosystems.

“What you might call day-to-day Coast Guard operations, doing patrols, search and rescue, aides to navigation, the other types of missions that we perform, here’s what we see ourselves doing and here’s what we think the environmental impact of those things are.”

The assessment looks at the Coast Guard’s plans for a broader arctic presence from mid-March through mid-November. Beyond summer training exercises in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas—exercises the service has already conducted for several years running—the increased arctic operations call for establishing safety zones around vessels exploring for oil, enforcing laws protecting endangered species and marine mammals, and “poaching prevention” of fish stocks and mineral deposits. The plan also calls for routine patrols of arctic waters with the nation’s two active icebreakers.

The assessment claims the impact will be minimal, and finds an increased Coast Guard presence will have “no significant adverse impacts” on water quality, arctic biology, cultural resources, and public safety.

It’s supported by a companion document, a biological evaluation endorsed by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that affirms the Coast Guard’s increased arctic presence is “not likely to adversely affect” protected bird, fish, and marine mammal species.

Even if their arctic commitments increase, the bigger question for the Coast Guard may be one of resources.

Andrew Hartsig directs the arctic program at the Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit oceans advocacy group in Anchorage. He says an increased Coast Guard presence above the Arctic Circle is, on the whole, a good thing, but he questioned if the agency has what it needs to carry out its goals.

“The limiting factor is clearly funding, and until the Coast Guard gets more funding, specifically to engage in arctic work, they are going to be resource-limited in terms of the personnel and the assets they can bring to bear.”

Despite continued calls from residents and organizations in the arctic for plans and preparation for maritime disasters like an oil spill in arctic waters, Dombkowski said those are all questions for a different assessment to tackle.

“Oil spill response is such a huge, big enough thing that it really deserves its own document,” he said, “and that document and supporting stuff is being done right now.”

For now, the Coast Guard plans to tour its new environmental assessment statewide, with plans to visit Anchorage, Kotzebue, Nome, and Barrow next week for public meetings.

A delegation from the agency will be in Nome Monday, May 12 at the Northwest campus, delivering at the campus conference room from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

EXT: Too Long

8 years minimum before the aff does anything

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 14 (“The race for the arctic oceans: Alaska can’t afford delays in evolving shipping lanes off its north coast,” 5/21,

http://www.newsminer.com/opinion/editorials/the-race-for-the-arctic-oceans-alaska-can-t-afford/article_e53cd404-e0c1-11e3-b6fb-001a4bcf6878.html)//DH

Even if new icebreakers were funded tomorrow, the timetable for their construction is about eight years, roughly the same as construction of a deepwater port would take if permitting, design and construction proceeded efficiently. America is well behind in a race that so far it has given little indication it knows it’s even running. With the U.S. slated to take a leadership role as chair of the Arctic Council next year, Alaska — and the rest of the country — can’t afford to waste any more time.

Takes at least 10 years to solve

O’Rourke 14 – Specialist in Naval Affairs

(Ronald, June 5, 2014, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf, JZG)

New Replacement Ships The Coast Guard estimated in February 2008 that new replacement ships for the Polar Star and Polar Sea might cost between $800 million and $925 million per ship in 2008 dollars to procure.34 The Coast Guard said that this estimate is based on a ship with integrated electric drive, three propellers, and a combined diesel and gas (electric) propulsion plant. The icebreaking capability would be equivalent to the POLAR Class Icebreakers [i.e., Polar Star and Polar Sea] and research facilities and accommodations equivalent to HEALY. This cost includes all shipyard and government project costs. Total time to procure a new icebreaker [including mission analysis, studies, design, contract award, and construction] is eight to ten years.35 The Coast Guard further stated that this notional new ship would be designed for a 30-year service life.