{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/coast-guard-vice-commandant-commits-to-improving-communication-with-alaska-fishing-fleet-following-irresponsible-russian-exercises-in-bering-sea", "Coast Guard Vice Commandant Commits to Improving Communication with Alaska Fishing Fleet Following \u201cIrresponsible\u201d Russian Exercises in Bering Sea", "2020-12-09", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "Senate", "AK", "Dan Sullivan", "S001198", "www.sullivan.senate.gov", "sullivan", "https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases?PageNum_rs=47", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Security, convened a hearing yesterday, attended by Admiral Charles Ray, vice commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, to examine the ability of the Coast Guard to safeguard America\u2019s national security and economic interests in the Arctic region, and the Coast Guard\u2019s response to recent Russian war games in the Bering Sea. The hearing comes one week after Senator Sullivan chaired a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support hearing on the capabilities of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Arctic. In last week\u2019s hearing, Sullivan also pressed Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite about the Navy\u2019s response to the Russian military exercises.\n\n\u201cWe've seen Russia push all in on controlling the Arctic,\u201d said Senator Sullivan. \u201cRussia has opened sixteen deep-water ports, fourteen airfields, built Arctic military bases, and even formed a new northern Arctic command. In fact, Vladimir Putin has referred to the northern sea route as the new Suez Canal, which he says Russia intends to fully control. In recent months, Russian provocation has only increased\u2026Without persistent U.S. presence in the Arctic, we risk leaving an opening for these types of aggressive actions to continue.\u201d\n\nSullivan went on to describe the work Congress and the Trump administration have done to significantly increase America\u2019s presence in the Arctic, including historic progress on the nation\u2019s first deep-water port in Nome, authorization of six new Polar-class icebreakers, and a White House memorandum on Arctic security.\n\nLater in the hearing, Sullivan asked Admiral Ray about the concerns of many Alaska fishermen who were threatened in the August large-scale Russian military exercises.\n\n\u201cFirst of all, our fishermen, in my view, should never be essentially forced out of the American EEZ when they're legally fishing. And yet, that did happen because the Russians are being quite forceful,\u201d said Sullivan. \u201cSecondly, there seemed to be somewhat of a lack of information flow\u2026Can you comment on that and how we avoid that from happening again, and what steps we need to take, and if you're looking at coordinating with NORTHCOM and the U.S. Navy on this\n\n\u201cThis was not our best day with regard to doing our role to look after American fishermen,\u201d said Admiral Ray. \u201cWhat we are doing to hopefully prevent this from ever happening again, we are having bi-weekly meetings with the industry groups, in particular, the at-sea fish processing group\u2026to understand how we can communicate that to the fleet so that the fleet knows in advance when they think that could cause a challenge to their fisheries operations. And we're dedicated to doing a better job at that. This is not a one and done thing. This is going to be a persistent effort on the part of the U.S. Coast Guard to keep that fleet informed.\u201d\n\nThe committee also heard from a second panel of witnesses that included two Alaskans: Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-Sea Processors Association, and retired Air Force Major General Randy Kee, executive director of the Arctic Domain Awareness Center and a recent appointee to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.\n\n\u201cI want to share two main messages with the committee,\u201d said Madsen. \u201cFirst, in any future incident such as this, U.S. authorities must be far more active in safeguarding our sovereign fishing rights. We would later learn that these confrontations were related to a major Russian military exercise of which the government received notice, yet nothing about the exercise was communicated to our industry\u2026Second, this kind of harassment simply cannot be allowed to become a new normal. In a rapidly-changing Arctic, we fear being caught in a crossfire of Russia's effort to establish a more assertive military and economic presence. Our sovereign right to legally fish within the U.S. EEZ must be protected\u2026From our vantage point, a robust U.S. military presence to protect U.S. interests in the region is simply non-negotiable.\u201d\n\nGeneral Kee reinforced Admiral Ray\u2019s and Madsen\u2019s calls for a more robust U.S. military and Coast Guard presence in the Arctic to meet the challenges posed by Russia.\n\n\u201cWith a dominant number of icebreakers, Russia can project surface forces in multiple directions simultaneously,\u201d said General Kee. \u201cRussian national decision making and defense planning are opaque at best. And Russia's Arctic military advantage should be met with resolve and strength as America cannot afford to be perceived as weak in our Arctic commitment to the Kremlin.\u201d\n\nTo watch the full Senate Commerce Subcommittee hearing, click here.\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-28T00:42:23Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/coast-guard-vice-commandant-commits-to-improving-communication-with-alaska-fishing-fleet-following-irresponsible-russian-exercises-in-bering-sea"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7382781952619553, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}