Homeland Security looks to buy a new $50M jet for secretary and Coast Guard officials

The Department of Homeland Security wants to walk astir $50 cardinal to bargain a caller long-range Gulfstream pitchy to regenerate an aging 1 utilized by Secretary Kristi Noem and apical Coast Guard and DHS officials.

The petition for funding, to travel from the Coast Guard's 2025 fiscal twelvemonth budget, came up during a House appropriations subcommittee gathering connected Wednesday. Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois said she was “horrified” to person a “last-minute addition” to the service's fund connection for the jet, noting Noem has different Gulfstream to use.

“We should beryllium investing successful our nationalist information and improving the lives of our Coasties — not wasting payer dollars connected luxury question and governmental stunts,” Underwood, the ranking subordinate of the Homeland Security Subcommittee connected Appropriations, said successful a societal media post. The Coast Guard is overseen by DHS.

The petition for a caller pitchy comes arsenic President Donald Trump considers accepting a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo pitchy arsenic a acquisition from the ruling household of Qatar.

Adm. Kevin Lunday, the acting commandant, said the Coast Guard, similar the different subject services, operates 2 subject “long-range bid and power aircraft” and the 1 being replaced is much than 20 years old.

“Like a batch of the remainder of our operational aviation fleet and our cutters and our boats and our enactment facilities, it’s aged and it’s approaching obsolescence and the extremity of its work life,” helium said during the hearing. “The avionics are progressively obsolete. The communications are progressively unreliable, and it is successful request of recapitalization similar overmuch of the fleet.”

Lunday, who became acting commandant connected Jan. 21 aft Trump, a Republican, fired Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, said the pitchy is needed to supply the DHS secretary, lawman secretary, himself, the acting vice commandant and 2 country commanders with "secure, reliable, on-demand communications and question to spell forward.”

The existent level is besides “outside the Gulfstream’s work life, and good beyond operational usage hours for a firm aircraft,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said successful a written statement, calling its replacement “a substance of safety.”

The bureau did not instantly respond to questions astir Noem’s usage of the level oregon different details astir the agency's request.

The Coast Guard received its different long-range bid and power C-37B craft successful 2022, saying astatine the clip its ngo was to “operate arsenic a bid and power level anyplace successful the satellite for the caput of Homeland Security, the commandant of the Coast Guard, and different apical DHS leadership.” That jet, which has a scope of 5,000 nautical miles and tin transportation 12 people, is based astatine Coast Guard Air Station Washington, D.C.

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