TOPICS
TOPICS
GAO: Costs of Coast Guard modernization to soar by $2 billion
The Government Accountability Office estimated Tuesday the cost of the long-delayed Coast Guard Deepwater ship and aircraft construction program would rise again, jumping $2.1 billion from the $24.2 billion forecast two years ago.
Stephen Caldwell, director of GAO's Homeland Security and Justice Issues department, told the Senate Commerce Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard Subcommittee there might be further "cost growth" beyond the new $26.3 billion estimate.
As a result, the higher costs might present the Coast Guard challenges involving potential tradeoffs in the program to upgrade its aging fleet, he said. But Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen told the subcommittee the service is analyzing each project. "I think it will change -- hopefully, it will go down," he said.
Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and ranking member Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said they were concerned about the rising costs.
Overall, the costs of the Deepwater program are not only going up, but the completion goal is moving from 2018 to 2027 for dozens of ships and planes, Cantwell said.
Allen also told Cantwell he endorsed a pending bill reauthorizing Coast Guard functions for fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011, including its proposed overhauls, such as creation of a high-level chief acquisition officer to monitor performance of programs and projects.
"The Coast Guard continues to face several management challenges," Caldwell said. As an example, he said the Coast Guard's proposed newest ship, the National Security cutter, has encountered delays that he said will "result in the loss of thousands of operational days for conducting missions through 2017."
But he added that the Coast Guard is taking steps to implement past GAO recommendations for improving the management of the construction program. The full Senate Commerce Committee is expected to mark up and approve the authorization bill Wednesday.
COMMENTS
- I think they should cut the foreign aid budget to zero and distribute the money to the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, CIA and FBI. Don Jones Posted July 9, 2009 2:56 PM
- And the loss of seasoned contracts professionals will no doubt be overcome by??? ...appointment of a new Admiral. Yea Thad, the costs will go down - when those 8 boats become seaworthy. How many times have we heard this bull? When was the 60 Minutes segment on Deep Water, two - three years ago? There is another Service that can buy and manage the ship building if the Coast Guard cannot. Gnatman Posted July 8, 2009 12:53 PM
- A significant portion of the budget increase is to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars the Coast Guard is paying the contractors to do work they were already on the hook to provide. This is occurring because the Coast Guard covered for huge mistakes on the 123s that were then propagated to the NSC. Since the Coast Guard (and DHS IG) allowed Lockheed to get away with saying a huge portion of their work was not in the requirements (which the Coast guard and IG did to cover for their lack of oversight) they were able to modify the contract and ask for hundreds of millions more to do work they already were under contract to perform. To make matters work that work on the 123s and NSC is severely flawed. Finally the Coast Guard and other government organizations have now gone 2 years in not being able to secure refunds to offset these costs. As a matter of fact a recent DHS IG report actually contradicts statements they have made in previous public reports and invalidates huge portions of the refund requests. Hopefully the DoJ will step up their involvement in our case and help us sort this out. Michael DeKort Posted July 8, 2009 7:42 AM
