Receding sea ice is opening the Arctic to new oil and gas exploration, shipping and military activity -- and it's also reviving a long-running debate about the future of America's aging polar fleet.

Both of the nation's heavy-duty icebreakers are laid up at their home port in Seattle. The Polar Sea is set to be decommissioned; the Polar Star is undergoing repairs to extend its life another seven to 10 years. A third icebreaker, the Healy, is seaworthy, but it was designed to conduct scientific research and cannot break through the thickest ice.

Now, frustrated by the Obama administration's management of the U.S. icebreaking fleet, Congress is taking matters into its own hands.

The House is considering a Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would direct the service to decommission both of the United States' heavy icebreakers within three years. Lawmakers began debating the bill Friday and are expected to pass the measure next week, after they return from a short recess.

The U.S. Coast Guard's Polar Star icebreaker, the queen of the U.S. fleet, such as it is. Photo courtesy of USCG.

The icebreaker provisions drew a formal statement of opposition from the White House last week, although the administration stopped short of a veto threat.

A spokesman for Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), the bill's sponsor, said the move to decommission both heavy icebreakers was born of frustration with the slow pace of Coast Guard decisionmaking.

"The intent was to spur them to come up with a plan for what happens after the life of these extended icebreakers," said LoBiondo spokesman Jason Galanes. "We just don't want to kick this down the road anymore. The hard decisions have to made about what our mission in the Arctic is."

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee last week approved Coast Guard reauthorization legislation that would require the service to maintain a fleet of at least two heavy-duty and one medium-duty polar icebreakers -- effectively preventing the Coast Guard from decommissioning either the Polar Sea or the Polar Star until replacements are ready to sail.

"We're at an impasse where we have two old ships that are being refitted, but we still have no long-range plans so the U.S. can maintain leadership roles in both polar regions," said retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. Jeffrey Garrett, who has served on all three icebreakers. "I think that's what a lot of this authorization brouhaha is about."

The problem, Garrett said, is that the repairs to the Polar Star are designed to extend that vessel's life by up to a decade -- roughly the time it would take to design and build a new polar icebreaker. But there are no plans right now to commission a new class of heavy-duty icebreakers to replace the aging Polar Star and Polar Sea, now 35 and 36 years old.

Coast Guard plays 'catch up' with fast-changing Arctic

"Everybody that looks into this issue, whether it's a nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences study or a consulting study group, looks into it and says, 'Whoa, we really need to have icebreakers, particularly with climate change and the other things going on in the Arctic,'" said Garrett.

He helped write a 2007 report by the science academy that recommended the Coast Guard design and build two new polar icebreakers, warning that "deferred long-term maintenance and failure to execute a plan for replacement or refurbishment of the nation's icebreaking ships have placed national interests in the polar regions at risk."

A Coast Guard study delivered to Congress this summer went even further, calling for a U.S. fleet of six heavy-duty and four medium-duty icebreakers to patrol Arctic waters, escort military vessels, conduct scientific research in the Arctic and resupply U.S. science bases in Antarctica.

"We're in what we call a strenuous chase right now to catch up," Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp Jr. told a Senate committee in July, describing the aging U.S. icebreaking fleet.

According to the Congressional Research Service, replacing the Polar Sea and Polar Star could cost anywhere form $800 million to $925 million per ship, while refurbishing them would run roughly $500 million per ship. The Coast Guard is currently preparing a "business case analysis" to determine the costs and benefits of both approaches.

Meanwhile, experts said the shortcomings of the U.S. fleet are becoming clear as time goes on.

The United States was one of eight Arctic nations that recently signed an agreement to provide search-and-rescue services in the far north. How it will carry out its share of those duties with just one icebreaker in good operating shape is an open question, said Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The Arctic is not going to wait for us," she said. "It's already moving ahead quickly. My fear is that the only thing that will shock us in moving our decisionmaking forward is some tragedy in the Arctic that will require these types of icebreaking capabilities."

Meanwhile, Garrett noted that the National Science Foundation was forced to consider canceling the upcoming Antarctic field season after the Swedish government broke an agreement to lend its heavy-duty icebreaker, Oden, to lead the annual resupply convoy to the U.S. Antarctic science hub, McMurdo Station.

NSF, which once relied on U.S. ships to lead the yearly supply mission, was able to save this year's research campaign by signing a last-minute contract to use a Russian icebreaker, the Vladimir Ignatyuk.

"This is a huge impact to science programs that have been planned and scheduled, to people who have ongoing research," Garrett said. "It's kind of the old, 'For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.' Because we've been unable to come up with a recapitalization plan for the icebreaker fleet, the whole U.S. Antarctic Program was in jeopardy."