{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sullivan-welcomes-usfinland-partnership-to-close-americas-icebreaker-gap", "Sullivan Welcomes U.S.\u2013Finland Partnership to Close America\u2019s Icebreaker Gap", "2025-10-10", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "AK", "Dan Sullivan", "S001198", "www.sullivan.senate.gov", "sullivan", "https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases?PageNum_rs=3", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) today applauded the announcement of a new agreement between the United States and Finland to build up to four advanced polar icebreakers. The $6.1 billion agreement will mark a significant expansion of U.S. icebreaking capacity as Russia and China continue to expand their military and commercial presence in the Arctic.\n\nThis partnership reinforces the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) Pact between Finland, the United States, and Canada, allowing all three nations to significantly accelerate icebreaker development and production through shared expertise and resources in support of America\u2019s Arctic security. This builds on years of work by Senator Sullivan to revitalize America\u2019s polar security capabilities. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee overseeing the Coast Guard, Sen. Sullivan was instrumental in securing nearly $25 billion in historic Coast Guard investments through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That package included$300 million for shoreside infrastructure to homeport the USCGC Storis\u2014the first new icebreaker in a generation\u2014in Juneau, Alaska.\n\n\u201cIf any state in the country knows one of our national security challenges, it's this and it's us: We have an icebreaker gap,\u201d said Sen. Sullivan in a video released today. \u201cRight now, we have two icebreakers\u2014one is broken\u2014and the Russians have 54, many of which are nuclear-powered, and weaponized. But here's the really good news: We are closing the icebreaker gap in a whole bunch of ways. Just in August, we were in Juneau to commission the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis. It was a great ceremony. I'd been working on that for ten years. The budget reconciliation bill has $300 million in shoreside infrastructure just for Juneau to homeport that icebreaker. Then, that bill also has the biggest build-up in the Coast Guard's history for icebreakers, cutters, helicopters. I chair the Senate Commerce subcommittee in charge of the Coast Guard. We're going to have at least 16 new icebreakers because of that bill\u2014three are what they call \u2018medium\u2019 security icebreakers. Guess where I'm going to work my tail off to get them homeported? In our great state!\n\n\u201cFinally, yesterday, President Trump and the president of Finland announced more progress on this ICE Pact. $6.1 billion and having the Finns help us build and purchase icebreakers for us, hopefully for Alaska. I've talked to the President. I've talked to the president of Finland about this. President Trump's been on this icebreaker gap way since his first term. This is real progress. The one state that's going to benefit better than anyone is us.\u201d\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "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/sullivan-welcomes-usfinland-partnership-to-close-americas-icebreaker-gap"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.5884459242224693, "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"}