Rep. Duncan Hunter pushes Coast Guard to procure a ship it doesn’t want — owned by a top campaign donor

Reporting from San Diego —  Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) has been pushing the U.S. Coast Guard to buy or lease a polar ice-breaking ship owned by one of his top campaign contributors, although officials repeatedly have said the vessel doesn’t meet the service’s needs.

The ship in question, the Aiviq, is a privately owned, commercial vessel with mid-level ability to break paths through frozen Arctic seas. It made national news in 2012 when it suffered mechanical failure and lost control of an oil rig it was towing. The rig ran aground off Kodiak Island in Alaska.

The Coast Guard says the Aiviq does not meet its needs, in particular because the vessel lacks military capabilities. Hunter has argued that the ship is a necessary and viable fleet option as melting polar ice opens the region to commercial traffic, putting more ships at risk.

Contributors connected to the Aiviq’s owner, Louisiana-based shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore, have given at least $18,000 to Hunter’s campaign since January 2015.

That’s a fraction of the $911,000 the congressman raised during that period. It makes Chouest the second most generous supporter of Hunter, according to campaign finance records.

The Chouest donations were received May 8, 2015 — six days before the Coast Guard was to have an acquisitions hearing before a congressional subcommittee that Hunter chaired.

The congressman’s office declined to comment for this story. Edison Chouest and the Coast Guard did not respond to requests for comment.

Richard L. Hasen, professor of law and political science at the UC Irvine School of Law, said it would be wrong to jump to conclusions. However, he said, an official investigation would help sort the issue out.

“It’s not a coincidence that people who sit on a defense committee get contributions from defense contractors; that’s the way Washington works,” Hasen said. “So drawing the line between icky conduct and illegal conduct is important, because many contributions are given in the hopes that the lawmaker will do things that benefit the contributor.”

At a subcommittee hearing July 12, Hunter questioned Coast Guard Adm. Charles Michel about the possibility of a lease.

Michel said the Coast Guard’s commandant had visited the vessel and found it “not suitable for military service without substantial refit.” He said the Coast Guard does not operate nonmilitary icebreakers.

Hunter described several ice-breaking scenarios — such as a resupply of a research mission — asking Michel whether vessels required military capability to accomplish them.

“One of the Coast Guard’s excuses for not using a lease vessel, or a less expensive vessel, is that it’s not a military-type vessel,” Hunter said. He added, “You’re telling me, a Coast Guard [ship] … to break ice … needs a more militarized vessel than the Navy does in terms of survivability?”

Michel said, “We have very specific requirements for our vessels.”

At the end of the hearing, Hunter directed Michel to help draft some options the committee could pursue to overcome legal obstacles that block the Coast Guard from short-term lease or charter of private icebreakers, “if we wanted to.”

Last month, Hunter asked Republican House leadership for money to be included in “any suitable and forthcoming appropriations vehicle” for lease or purchase of a medium icebreaker, according to a Sept. 20 letter that the congressman’s office released to the Union-Tribune on Thursday.

The letter estimated the costs to charter the Aiviq at $33 million per year to lease, or $150 million to buy.

A week later, Michel sent Hunter’s office a letter saying the Coast Guard had conducted market research on the Aiviq and determined that it could, “under certain legal and operational conditions,” execute at least some of the Coast Guard’s 11 missions.

“However, the vessel’s ability to fulfill Coast Guard icebreaker requirements remains unclear because Aiviq has not undergone thorough testing in ice trials, and in its current configuration, lacks the the ability to conduct a full range of Coast Guard missions that our icebreakers carry out,” Michel wrote.

The Coast Guard has two operational icebreakers in its aging fleet — one medium and one heavy. Analysts have determined the nation needs a modern fleet of three heavy and three medium icebreakers to meet the challenges of the Arctic and Antarctic.

Using the Aiviq would be a stopgap measure to address concerns that the two existing ships could fail before replacements are commissioned.

The Hunter contributions on May 8, 2015, came from Gary Chouest and his wife, Carolyn, who contributed the maximum $5,400 each. Dino and Ross Chouest, both of the Edison Chouest-affiliated company Galliano Marine Services LLC, gave $1,000 each. Five Bollinger Shipyards executives gave $500 each, and another Bollinger executive gave $2,700.

The money entered Hunter’s campaign coffers at the height of a problem he has since acknowledged with thousands of dollars of campaign funds that were spent on personal expenses — such as $1,137 for oral surgery. The Hunter campaign — managed by the congressman’s wife, Margaret — also spent thousands of dollars on groceries, gasoline and fast food.

Federal law prohibits the expense of campaign funds on personal needs. Hunter’s office earlier this year promised an audit of his campaign funds. He has so far reimbursed his campaign for $12,000.

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com

Cook writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

UPDATES:

12:55: p.m. This article was updated to include more details on Hunter’s request for funding for the icebreaker and the Coast Guard’s letter about the ship’s suitability.

This article was originally published at 11:10 a.m.