The US Coast Guard faces multiple backlogs of shore infrastructure projects that it estimates will cost at least US$7 billion to address as of June 2024, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) said recently.
Heather MacLeod, Director for Homeland Security and Justice at the GAO, said the scope of shore infrastructure extends beyond piers and lighthouses. It includes housing units in remote locations for coast guard members and their families, training centres where new recruits learn and practice essential job skills, and command centres that direct coast guard missions such as search and rescue operations.
These assets collectively represent a value of US$24.5 billion, as reported by the coast guard in FY 2023.
In its internal annual 2023 report on its shore infrastructure, the coast guard rated the overall condition of its shore infrastructure as “mediocre to fair” and found that nearly half of its related assets were operating beyond their expected service life.
Some types of assets fare worse than others. For example, 81 per cent of the coast guard’s shore infrastructure aviation assets, such as lighting for airfields, are past their service life.
"In 2019, we evaluated coast guard shore infrastructure based on leading practices for managing public sector maintenance backlogs," MacLeod said in her testimony before the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
"Based on our analysis, we made six recommendations, including that the coast guard should better manage its portfolio of shore infrastructure assets by establishing goals, measures, and baselines to track the effectiveness of its maintenance and repair efforts.
"As we reported in our 2025 report, in response to one of our recommendations, the coast guard established new measures to aid more consistent data reporting on these efforts but has yet to develop related goals and baselines. Developing goals and baselines will help the coast guard more accurately gauge the impact of its maintenance and repair efforts."
The coast guard faces multiple backlogs of shore infrastructure projects that it estimates will cost at least US$7 billion to address as of June 2024. This is more than double the amount reported by the GAO in 2019.
The backlogs consist of recapitalisation projects, such as new construction, and deferred depot-level maintenance, such as repaving an airfield. According to coast guard officials, these backlog projects are priorities that would be completed immediately if funding were available.
Years of deferred maintenance, combined with the need for new facilities to accommodate new assets (such as the Offshore Patrol Cutter), have contributed to the growth in the backlogs’ cost, according to coast guard officials.
"We have reported on these issues and found that the coast guard’s short-term budget decisions have contributed to the buildup of its deferred maintenance and recapitalisation efforts," added MacLeod.
"Moreover, we found that the coast guard-estimated US$7 billion cost to address its shore infrastructure is understated because there are hundreds of additional projects that lack cost estimates, and the coast guard has not updated all of its existing cost estimates for inflation."
The GAO also found that the coast guard’s shore infrastructure backlogs are contributing to a buildup of unaffordable acquisitions in both the near-term and long-term. This presents significant challenges to the coast guard’s major acquisition programs.
In February 2025, the GAO found that the coast guard’s highest priority programs are still experiencing schedule challenges.
For example, in August 2024, the coast guard revised its schedule goals for the Offshore Patrol Cutter program. The program is now planning for delivery of its lead ship by December 2025, more than four years later than originally planned.
"The coast guard cannot adequately address its backlog of shore infrastructure projects, and the President’s budget requests for shore infrastructure have not fully addressed the coast guard’s funding targets," said MacLeod.
"Each year, the coast guard sets funding targets for shore infrastructure. However, the President’s budget requests for each fiscal year from FY 2019 to FY 2025 and the actual funding levels for shore infrastructure have consistently been below those targets since at least FY 2019.
MacLeod added that coast guard officials have said they will not be able to address the agency’s backlogs of shore infrastructure projects if funding remains at the FY 2024 funding level.
Current funding is only adequate to address the most pressing needs, which tend to be unplanned corrective actions to address issues that have accumulated over time from years of deferred maintenance, according to coast guard officials.
"As we stated in our 2025 report, these gaps have persisted for years. According to the coast guard, the budget topline set by the Office of Management and Budget prevents the coast guard from requesting a level of funding that would adequately address all of its shore infrastructure needs.
"However, as we recently reported, the coast guard could do more to inform Congress’s budget deliberations."
In 2019, the GAO found that the coast guard was not providing Congress with accurate and transparent information related to the budget requests for its shore infrastructure. As a result, the GAO recommended that the coast guard include supporting details about competing priorities and trade-offs in congressional budget requests and related reports—a step that it has not yet taken.
"Without accurate and transparent information on the coast guard’s budgetary needs, Congress lacks critical information to help it prioritize funding to resolve shore infrastructure backlogs," MacLeod remarked.
The GAO also found that the coast guard could save money by employing models for predicting investment outcomes, analysing trade-offs, and optimising decisions among competing shore infrastructure investments.
For example, in 2017, the coast guard developed a model to achieve cost savings by speeding up aviation pavement investments. However, the model was not adopted.
"As we recently reported, the coast guard selected a model to analyse building investments," said MacLeod." However, officials stated that the model will not be fully employed until 2028."
In 2019, the GAO made six recommendations to help the coast guard better manage its shore infrastructure. As of February 2025, the coast guard has fully addressed two of those recommendations and taken steps toward addressing three of them, but four remain open.
In order to fully address all four of the open recommendations, the coast guard will need to (1) develop goals and baselines for tracking the effectiveness of its maintenance and repair efforts; (2) implement new guidance to align its assets with mission needs; (3) fully employ models to help prioritise decision-making; and (4) find new ways to inform Congress about the various projects alternatives and trade-offs that the coast guard faces when deciding how best to allocate its shore infrastructure resources.
"We believe that fully addressing our 2019 recommendations will help the coast guard to better manage its resources, identify cost savings, and provide Congress with better information to address shore infrastructure challenges," MacLeod concluded.