NavyTimes – Staff Report – The Coast Guard will run out of money Feb. 27 if Congress doesn’t pass a Homeland Security Department budget for fiscal 2015.
That would force active-duty members to work without pay until a bill is signed, the U.S. Naval Institute reported Feb. 19 in its Seapower magazine.
The Coast Guard had no official statement as of Feb. 20, but spokesman Chief Warrant Officer 3 Chad Saylor said Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft is planning to post an explanation of what Coast Guardsmen can expect if the service is forced to operate without a budget.
The budget impasse has nothing to do with the Coast Guard. Republicans and Democrats have been at odds over language inserted in the measure that would prevent President Obama with making good on plans to reduce deportations for undocumented immigrants.
If the Senate doesn’t sign off on the House’s version of the budget bill — which overturns the president’s executive order on immigration regulations — by Feb. 27, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told CNN earlier this month, his department will have to furlough 30,000 civilians of the 230,000-person workforce.
Those other 200,000, including members of the Coast Guard, are considered essential personnel and would continue working without pay until a budget is passed.
The budget impasse also threatens the Coast Guard’s ability to proceed with its eighth national security cutter.
Zukunft told Navy Times on Feb. 12 that he won’t be able to start a new contract for the top-of-the-line cutter until Congress approves the bill.
“If this drags out much further, it really does put that contract into jeopardy and, at the end of the day, it causes a delay, which causes costs to go up,” he said.