High-Ranking US Coast Guard officials and visiting congressmen listen in on plan to expand Nome’s Arctic Deep Draft Port

By Jenni Monet |

On the eve of commissioning the repurposed Storis, moored in Juneau — what is now the United States’ first new polar icebreaker in a quarter century — senior U.S. Coast Guard officers gathered with local leaders in Nome for a Saturday morning of listening and learning about the city’s plans to build the nation’s first deep draft Arctic port. 
The loosely planned meeting at Pioneer Hall was folded into a multi-day trip to Alaska by acting Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin E. Lunday.  On this day, the four-star admiral was traveling with an entourage large enough to fill a school bus. This included two congressmen from two southern states which are the farthest away from Alaska—Mississippi and Florida.
Representatives Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) and Mike Ezell (R-MS) both sit on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, but it is their role on the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation that explained their presence in Nome.  Ezell chairs that subcommittee and last month saw a bill he helped sponsor win approval by Congress. 
The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025 now awaits President Trump’s signature and already, it is seen as a game-changer.  
“The Coast Guard is not the one that typically has had the billions of dollars to invest and create infrastructure,” said USCG Arctic Coordinator Shawn Hay. Now, he says the problem for the USCG is figuring out how best to invest in the $24 billion allocated to the service by the recently passed Coast Guard Act. 
Where funding freezes and chronic oversight have been the norm for the USCG, the legislation has increased funding by about $5 billion each fiscal year, through 2029. 
What this cash injection means for Alaska, and more specifically, Nome’s Arctic Deep Draft Port is anyone’s guess.  
At Pioneer Hall, Adm. Lunday sat in a room with elected officials, port commissioners, Native corporate and tribal executives and scientists — as if taking in a sales pitch.  Behind him, posters sat on tripods helping to explain the four-stage harbor expansion project.  This included an illustration of Phase 1A, a modification of the original outlay after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers canceled the solicitation process due to budgetary concerns, last year. 
This time around, city officials were optimistic that expansion efforts were on track: the Army Corps is evaluating bids, with a decision expected to be made by the end of August.    
 
Investing in the USCG
President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill earmarks more than $8.6 billion of the set-aside $24 billion in the Coast Guard Act to increase the USCG’s icebreaker fleet in the Arctic, where the hope is to counter rising Russian and Chinese dominance.
The funding includes $4.3 billion for up to three new heavy Coast Guard Polar Security Cutters, $3.5 billion for medium Arctic Security Cutters, and $816 million for procurement of additional light and medium icebreaking cutters. 
The Storis aligns with the latter category of low-powered ice-cutters, meaning a lot of the big ticket USCG spending has yet to be realized.  
On Sunday in commemoration of the occasion in Juneau, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan wasted little time advocating for Alaska’s maritime interests.  
“The Storis is more than a ship,” he said. “Her arrival is a clear and deliberate message: The United States is an Arctic nation. Alaska is an Arctic state, and the United States Coast Guard is a capable, growing, and lethal Arctic force.” 
In lead-up to passage of the Coast Guard Act, Rep. Ezell, a career law enforcement officer of 40 years, often promoted his bill in the press as one that could help police drug traffickers and undocumented immigrants in the Gulf of Mexico.  But he said his recent visit to Nome gave him a fresh perspective about other Coast Guard capabilities. 
“While it’s still early, the Coast Guard Authorization Act could help bring more resources, personnel, and infrastructure to support Coast Guard operations in the Arctic,” Rep. Ezell told The Nome Nugget through a spokesperson by email.  “I was impressed by what I saw in Nome and believe the city is well-positioned to play a key role in strengthening our national presence and safety in the Arctic.” 
 
‘A lot of work that has to be done’
Under the original build-out plan published in the 2020 feasibility study, the total cost for the Port of Nome deepwater expansion was estimated at about $618 million. Over the years, this number has steadily increased. Construction bids for the first phase of the project came in higher than expected, forcing the Army Corps in October 2024 to cancel the original Phase 1 procurement.  The project is now moving forward in a scaled-down Phase 1A with the rest of the scope deferred to later phases.
Hay said the Coast Guard’s recent $24 billion funding boost could potentially help build out the Port of Nome’s capabilities, but by indirect assets – and that’s if the USCG decided it wanted to homeport a number of icebreakers and cutters here. In this scenario, infrastructure might come in the building of such things as shore facilities, fuel depots, or housing for USCG crews. 
In Juneau, Adm. Lunday mentioned the slow process to realize this kind of infrastructure in relation to the Storis. 
“We want to move much faster,” Lunday said during Sunday’s commissioning of the icebreaker.  “But there is a lot of work that has to be done,” he said.
The Storis still requires a permanent homeport pier in the capital city, but that target is off by several years.  For now, the vessel will dock in Seattle, Washington.
The lagging is emblematic of the long-underfunded legacy of the USCG.

Competition in the Arctic 
Coast Guard officials and lawmakers, for years, have addressed the need for enhancing the nation’s maritime patrol in the Arctic. As the polar ice recedes, unlocking valuable minerals, and oil and gas, the race to claim these resources and the routes to market them has generated heightened tensions throughout the Far North.   
The USCG made this clear on Friday, August 8, when it announced its C-130J Hercules fixed wing aircraft had detected and responded to a Chinese research vessel operating in U.S. Arctic waters.  The Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di was transiting north of the Chukchi Sea after passing through the Bering Strait, last week.  Officials believe as many as four similar vessels were also spotted in the region, including one suspected of exploring for deep sea minerals.
“The presence of these vessels is consistent with a three-year trend of increased activity from Chinese research vessels operating in the U.S. Arctic,” read the Coast Guard’s press release.  
Most of these sightings, officials say, have notably occurred in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
Presentation folders advertising the “Port of Nome” were handed out at Saturday’s meeting, depicting a bird’s eye view of the city’s coastline along the Seward Peninsula in the Norton Sound.  
This geography along the Bering Sea is why many identify it as one of Alaska’s most important locations for targeted infrastructure growth. National security is just one aspect of this push.  
Another is revenue. 
Russia holds vast Arctic oil, gas, and mineral reserves, and its Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and other newly developed deepwater ports along the Northern Sea Route currently give the country unmatched capacity.  Nome’s enhanced harbor would be the first project to begin closing this gap. 
At a recent conference in Anchorage, Governor Mike Dunleavy promoted the Port of Nome as a way to improve cargo to support long-imagined export interests linked to liquified natural gas — North Slope shipments that aim to directly compete with Russia’s millions of tons of LNG delivered annually via ice-class tankers along the Northern Sea Route to Europe and Asia. 
“We are at the center of so much,” Mayor Handeland told Adm. Lunday and his guests — right before he and his entourage boarded their bus and left.