A $91.5 billion bill making its way through Congress funding programs under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security includes provisions to continue supporting an increased U.S. Coast Guard presence in the Pacific.

The bill includes $335 million requested by U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who represents urban Honolulu and sits on the House Appropriations Committee, for the acquisition of four new Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters for the Coast Guard to support operations in the Pacific.

The measure also includes language encouraging the Coast Guard to continue stepping up its coordination with U.S. Indo-­Pacific Command, expand intelligence-sharing efforts with regional countries and take steps to improve Coast Guard facilities in Hawaii.

“My recent site visits to U.S. Coast Guard stations in Honolulu, Washington state and Alaska not only reinforced my understanding of the service’s critical role in our country’s maritime security and emergency search and rescue operations, but the visits also strengthened my push to increase the Coast Guard’s presence in the Indo-­Pacific,” Case said in a news release.

The Coast Guard has been working to modernize its aging fleet of cutters as the service plays an increasingly critical role in the U.S. military’s strategy at sea.

This month, Pacific Shipyards International completed its first round of maintenance on the USCGC Kimball, which along with the USCGC Midgett is one of two Legend-class National Security Cutters assigned to Coast Guard District 14. Headquartered in Honolulu, District 14 encompasses Oceania and the Western Pacific and is the Coast Guard’s largest area of operations.

The Legend-class cutters are among the service’s largest vessels at 418 feet long, 54 feet wide, with a water displacement of 4,500 long tons and an operating range of 12,000 nautical miles. Most recently, the Kimball sailed all the way to Japan to conduct operations and train with the Japanese Coast Guard.

But while the two national security cutters conduct long-range missions around the region, the Coast Guard also looks to its more nimble fast-response cutters to respond quickly to contingencies and conduct operations in island communities with ports and harbors too small for the large Legend-class cutters to enter.

These vessels — which are gradually replacing the service’s older Island-class patrol boats — are operated by a 24-person crew, are 154 feet long and can reach speeds of more than 30 mph. Of the 10 cutters currently assigned to District 14, six of them are fast-­response cutters.

In 2021 the Coast Guard held a historic triple commissioning ceremony when it brought three new fast­-response cutters — the Myrtle Hazard, Oliver Henry and Frederick Hatch — to Santa Rita, Guam. Then-Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz, now retired, flew from Washington, D.C., to Guam to preside over the occasion, telling attendees, “These FRCs are so capable that we bring expeditionary capability to the region that we haven’t had before.”

The Coast Guard also launched a study in 2020 looking at the feasibility of stationing a fast-response cutter permanently in American Samoa, but abandoned the effort after determining building infrastructure to support it would be too costly. However, the service is still looking to increase patrols around the island territory.

The Coast Guard also has been stepping up cooperation with regional countries to monitor fisheries. Many Pacific island nations lack navies or Coast Guards of their own and rely on partnerships to help them with fishery enforcement and search and rescue missions.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which is responsible for overseeing fisheries in Hawaii and around America’s Pacific island territories, has expressed concerns that large-scale foreign commercial fishing is having a serious impact on American fisheries.

American Samoa’s longline fishing fleet caught 5,000 metric tons of albacore tuna in 2007, but Wespac says that today it barely brings in more than 1,000. Wespac officials have blamed the stark decrease on charter agreements China has signed with nearby Pacific island nations.

Foreign “distance fishing” fleets operate differently from local commercial fishermen; they have much larger boats with huge onboard freezers that allow them to take back bigger hauls. Many foreign fishing vessels will also deliver their hauls to even larger industrial freezer ships that take fish back to Asia rather than returning to port after reaching capacity. That allows these vessels to stay at sea for months or even years as they get refueled and resupplied at sea.

Some of the companies operating these vessels have been accused of flouting environmental regulations and underreporting their catches. By some estimates as many as 1 in 5 fish sold in supermarkets may have been caught illegally. In 2020 the Coast Guard said illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing — which maritime agencies call IUU — had surpassed high-seas piracy as the top global maritime security threat.

Coast Guard officials point to competition over dwindling stocks leading to instances of violence at sea between rival fishermen and bitter international disputes between governments over fishing and maritime navigation rights. In some instances, fishermen struggling to bring in enough fish have also turned to drug smuggling and other crimes to make up for lost income.

There has also been increasing scrutiny of Chinese vessels. In 2020 the leaders of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard wrote that China “deploys a multilayered fleet” that includes “naval auxiliaries disguised as civilian vessels.” Sometimes called “maritime militias,” these vessels have been used to conduct surveillance missions in support of China’s conventional navy and to stake out disputed territories in the South China Sea.

This month in an interview with Reuters, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. said he had asked the United States to step up patrols of his country’s waters after several incursions by Chinese vessels, including what they considered suspicious activity by one that appeared to be surveying an area near fiber-optic cables vital to the country’s communications.