House committee presses Coast Guard on missing acquisition reports; vice admiral pledges deliveries

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure pressed Vice Admiral Allen on Tuesday over the U.S. Coast Guard’s failure to provide reports the committee says are required by law, and Allen pledged to deliver missing documents and an aviation strategy on a schedule he outlined.

A committee member opened the exchange by saying the Coast Guard had not provided several required documents: an annual capital investment plan, a biannual major acquisitions report and a quarterly acquisitions brief. The committee member told Vice Admiral Allen, “You have never provided this committee with a major acquisition report. You have not provided a capital investment plan since FY 23, and even that was a year late, sir. And we have not received an acquisition brief since quarter 3 of last year.” The member added, “Given the challenges with the Coast Guard's acquisition efforts, why does the Coast Guard refuse to follow the law and produce information that you are required to provide for us?”

Vice Admiral Allen acknowledged the shortfalls and offered three commitments. He said, “we need to get better,” and pledged to provide the capital investment plan and more frequent acquisition information. Specifically, Allen said the Coast Guard will “deliver the capital investment plan to you 60 days after the President's budget is delivered to the Hill.” He also committed that “before April 1, I will ensure that your staff gets a quarterly acquisitions brief,” and that the service is “working on an aviation strategy” that it would provide “before April” in a briefing to explain current status and plans.

The committee's remarks framed the requests as regular oversight of acquisition programs; no formal enforcement action or committee vote was recorded during the exchange. Allen described steps to streamline the quarterly brief to make it “more succinct” while still answering the committee’s questions. The Coast Guard did not, in this exchange, provide a date for when a biannual major acquisitions report would be submitted, nor did it identify the legal citation requiring these documents.

The committee member raised those lapses in the context of broader acquisition challenges the Coast Guard has faced; the transcript shows a short back-and-forth focused on commitments and timelines rather than on new policy changes. The committee now has a set of deadlines to verify in follow-up: delivery of a capital investment plan within 60 days after the President’s budget, a quarterly acquisitions brief to staff before April 1, and an aviation strategy briefing before April.

The committee did not record a formal vote on enforcement measures during the exchange. The Coast Guard’s compliance will depend on the service meeting the deadlines Allen outlined and on the committee’s subsequent review of the materials.