Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Coast Guard Shore Infrastructure topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
GAO: Coast Guard shore-infrastructure backlog $7 billion; true cost likely higher
Summary
The Government Accountability Office told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that the U.S. Coast Guard faces a shore-infrastructure backlog of about $7,000,000,000 and that nearly half of its shore facilities are beyond their service life.
The Government Accountability Office told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that the U.S. Coast Guard faces a shore-infrastructure backlog of about $7,000,000,000 and that nearly half of its shore facilities are beyond their service life.
"Miss McCloud, the coast guard is confronting a costly backlog of shore infrastructure projects. GAO recently updated its findings to reflect that the backlog is 7,000,000,000, and nearly half the coast guard's shore infrastructure is beyond its life service. This backlog is exacerbated by lack of budget transparency," said Miss McCloud during committee questioning.
A Government Accountability Office representative responded that the Coast Guard has taken at least one step the GAO recommended: acquiring a modeling system intended to improve how the service assesses costs for shore projects. "The Coast Guard recently, took steps to address 1 of our recommendations, for example, by, acquiring a modeling system, that will help them assess the cost. And so that is 1 tool that once it has the information in it, we'll be following up with them to make sure that they're using that modeling tool to make the decisions and trade offs," the GAO representative said.
The GAO representative also warned that the documented $7 billion figure likely understates the true need because many project cost estimates "have not been updated since their original estimates, nor have they been adjusted for inflation," and said, "we suspect the backlog is actually much higher and, better information related to the actual cost of the black backlog, is something we'd like to to see from the Coast Guard."
The exchange recorded no formal votes or committee actions. The GAO representative said GAO will follow up to verify how the Coast Guard uses the modeling tool and to seek updated, inflation-adjusted cost estimates; the transcript does not specify timing for that follow-up or any directive from the committee.
