The woman who presided over the U.S. Coast Guard’s placement of an icebreaker in Juneau was fired on President Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House.
Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, was relieved of her duties for reasons not specified by Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman.
“She served a long and illustrious career, and I thank her for her service to our nation,” a statement by Huffman notes. “Admiral Kevin E. Lunday, by operation of law, is now the Acting Commandant of the Coast Guard and assumes all the authority and responsibilities of the office.”
Fagan was the first woman to lead any branch of the U.S. armed forces after being nominated to serve as the 27th Commandant of the Coast Guard. in April of 2022 by former President Joe Biden. Her tenure was marked by some struggles with ongoing problems, including years-long delays in building new Polar Security Cutters — which resulted in the decision to buy a private icebreaker and homeport it in Juneau within a few years as a stopgap measure — and revelations in 2023 of a long-running coverup of sexual abuse allegations that occurred before she took command.
A report by Reuters noted Trump adviser Elon Musk, who is leading the new administration’s effort to cut federal government costs, alluded to efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in an X post, without specifically referencing Fagan.
“Undermining the US military and border security to spend money on racist/sexist DEI nonsense is no longer acceptable,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote on X.
Fox News, which first reported Fagan’s removal, cited an unnamed Department of Homeland Security official in reporting it was due to her “failure to address border security threats, insufficient leadership in recruitment and retention, mismanagement in acquiring key acquisitions such as icebreakers and helicopters, excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and an ‘erosion of trust’ over the mishandling and cover-up of Operation Fouled Anchor, which was the Coast Guard’s internal investigation into sexual assault cases at the Coast Guard Academy.”
Fagan, in her annual State of the Coast Guard speech in March of 2024, said “this year my top acquisition priority is beginning construction on the Polar Security Cutter,” the first new heavy icebreaker constructed in the U.S. since the 1970s. Work on the cutter officially began in December following a six-year process, with construction expected to take a minimum of five years and result in a vessel no sooner than 2030 — rather than last year as originally scheduled.
Those ongoing delays are why Fagan gave her support to efforts by members of Congress, including Alaska’s delegation, for the purchase of a private icebreaker with more limited capabilities for the time being.
“In the near term the purchase of a commercially available icebreaker would increase U.S. presence in the Arctic while we were to build the new class of polar security cutters,” Fagan said in her speech. “We must continue to invest today to ensure the Coast Guard fleet of tomorrow is ready. Our future mission success and America’s prosperity depends on it.”
The Coast Guard officially purchased the Aiviq, a private icebreaker built in 2012, late last year and renamed it the Storis, after a former light icebreaker in service for 64 years, including being stationed in Juneau after World War II. The ship may initially be deployed in Juneau as soon as the summer of 2026, but it will be several years before the ship and supporting local infrastructure are fully upgraded.
Coast Guard officials have stated 190 crew and about 400 family members are expected to relocate to Juneau when the ship is fully in service.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in an interview last August she was frustrated with the Coast Guard’s delays in building the new Polar Security Cutters, but her conversations with Fagan about those vessels and the plan for the Juneau-bound icebreaker were encouraging.
“She is taking an approach that in my view is smart, but it’s not necessarily in keeping with how the Coast Guard likes to do things,” Murkowski said. “So she’s going to have to put her own political muscle into this and say ‘stop trying to make the perfect be the enemy of the good here.’”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
