The White House is seeking $8 million from Congress to begin the process of securing a new polar icebreaker to shore up the Coast Guard's aging fleet and support new missions in the thawing Arctic.

The proposal is included in the president's $39.5 billion fiscal 2013 budget request for the Coast Guard, released yesterday.

The $8 million sought by the White House, a fraction of the $859 million the Coast Guard estimates a new heavy icebreaker would cost, would pay for initial design work and the development of an "acquisition strategy," the administration said yesterday.

The current U.S. icebreaking fleet includes just one functional vessel, the Coast Guard cutter Healy. Designed and operated as a research vessel, the Healy made headlines last month when it escorted a Russian oil tanker on a journey to deliver fuel to iced-in Nome, Alaska.

Meanwhile, 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.

It remains to be seen whether the White House proposal to begin planning for a new heavy icebreaker will break an impasse between the administration and lawmakers frustrated that the White House has not, until this point, laid out a plan to buy or lease icebreakers to replace the ailing Polar Sea and Polar Star.

First mission: Break through obstacles in Congress

That produced a bevy of competing legislation designed to force the issue (ClimateWire, Nov. 7, 2011).

The House approved a Coast Guard reauthorization bill in November that would direct the Coast Guard to decommission both heavy icebreakers within three years. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee passed a different Coast Guard authorization bill 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.

Other lawmakers have suggested leasing icebreakers to fill the gap in America's polar fleet.

Recent events have put the icebreaker issue in the national spotlight. Last summer, officials at the National Science Foundation were 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.

With no American icebreaker available to do the job, NSF scrambled to secure the services of a Russian ship, the Vladimir Ignatyuk, to allow the 2011-2012 Antarctic field season to proceed.

And last month, the Healy escorted the Russian oil tanker Renda on its mission to deliver much-needed fuel to Nome -- a journey that has delayed preparations for the Healy's planned summer science cruise in the Arctic, creating the possibility that some research projects will be shortened or canceled, Science reported.