Failure by the U.S. Coast Guard to invest in maintaining and renewing its crumpling shore infrastructure and a lack of funding from the U.S. Congress has resulted in a significant increase in the amount required to carry out the work. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is again shining the spotlight on the agency’s mounting challenges, estimating that the USCG now requires $7 billion to rebuild its deteriorating shore infrastructures, more than double the amount required in 2019.
GOA carried out a detailed assessment in 2019 of the Coast Guard’s shore infrastructures and made recommendations to manage the growing challenges. Based on USCG assessments, GAO determined that about 50 percent of the facilities were past their expected service life. The agency needed $2.6 billion to revamp the facilities comprising assets like piers, runways, and buildings. USCG it reports has about 40,000 shore infrastructure assets with a value of $24.5 billion.
Six years later GAO finds little has been achieved and the agency is now grappling with an infrastructure maintenance backlog amounting to $7 billion. The Coast Guard admitted in a 2023 report that the condition of most of the facilities ranged from “mediocre to fair” and were contributing to the worsening operational challenges.
The Coast Guard cites budgetary constraints for the backlog, reporting the government’s budgets since 2019 failed to include requested funding levels that the agency identified were required to meet its targets in terms of shore infrastructure investments. A case in point is the 2025 financial year in which the agency requested $709 million but was only allocated $167 million by Congress.
Apart from budgetary constraints that have forced the deferment of maintenance, the agency is also attributing the surge in backlog to new facilities that are needed to accommodate new assets including the offshore patrol cutters (OPC). The agency is building 25 OPCs that will replace the aging medium endurance cutters.
“We found that the Coast Guard-estimated $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,” said GAO.
In its report, GAO highlights that the current shore infrastructure backlog cuts across recapitalization projects that include replacing assets that have reached the end of their useful life, new construction projects that include building a boat maintenance facility, and deferred depot-level maintenance projects, such as repaving an airfield. Also affected are critical infrastructures like housing units for service members and their families, training centers, and command centers.
GAO reports it made six recommendations to the USCG in 2019, of which the Coast Guard has only fully addressed two while also taking steps toward three of the recommendations. It says the Coast Guard is in the process of systematically assessing the condition of its shore infrastructure but has not developed supporting details on project alternatives and trade-offs in congressional budget requests.
The report concludes the USCG should be taking the recommended steps to more efficiently manage existing resources, including reducing costs. It would also provide the Coast Guard and Congress with better information to address the mounting shore infrastructure challenges.