What happened
On September 25, 2026, the Government Accountability Office published Naval Shipyards: Complete Information Needed for Decision-Making on Multibillion-Dollar, 50-Year Infrastructure Program (GAO-26-107830). The review responds to a provision in the joint explanatory statement for the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, which directed GAO to report on how the program is overseen and managed. GAO analyzed program documents and cost and schedule data, visited shipyards and interviewed officials.
The subject is the Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, known as SIOP. The Navy launched it in 2018 to address poor conditions and capability gaps at its four public shipyards: Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Hawaii, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Washington. These yards are where the nuclear-powered fleet is maintained and modernized.
The Navy initially estimated that SIOP would cost at least $21 billion over 20 years. GAO found that estimate omitted key costs. By 2023, the plan for Pearl Harbor alone was estimated at about $16 billion, an increase of about 162 percent from the 2018 estimate. For Portsmouth, the lowest of the three completed shipyard cost analyses, all planned projects came to a rough escalated cost of $41.6 billion. Taken together, GAO concluded that the program "will surpass $200 billion and take over 50 more years to execute," and that the last currently planned project is not scheduled for completion until after 2080.
The Navy has divided the work into three blocks, with Block 1 running roughly from fiscal year 2026 to 2042, Block 2 from about 2038 to 2079, and Block 3 from about 2074 to the end of the program. As of April 2026, 100 construction projects were completed or underway. Of those, 86 were funded through operation and maintenance accounts, at about $2.49 billion in final or estimated costs, and 14 through military construction, at about $8.67 billion.
Why it matters
This is a preservation story at national scale. GAO reports that many shipyard facilities were constructed more than 80 to over 120 years ago and suffered from long-deferred maintenance. At Norfolk, the Navy identified safety risks in failing buildings that required several extensive repair projects. GAO's earlier work, cited in the report, found in 2017 that neglected shipyard infrastructure contributed to maintenance running longer than planned, leaving ships unavailable for thousands of days over the period GAO analyzed. When the facility that repairs a fleet degrades, the fleet's availability degrades with it.
The report also shows how hazards that were not in the original plan can reshape a program. At Puget Sound, the Navy has identified more than $1 billion in needed facility retrofits and new construction since 2023 to address newly assessed seismic risks. It completed emergency dry-dock retrofits and repairs in 2023, and its fiscal year 2026 budget request sought $830 million for seismic upgrades to Dry Dock 4. Updated seismic assessments affected about two dozen buildings, and contractor input led to a full redesign of the planned dry-dock project and the layout of a large part of the shipyard. Environmental issues also added projects and expanded the scope of work. Separately, costs for the dry-dock projects at Portsmouth and Pearl Harbor grew by more than $2.5 billion after funding was first requested from Congress.
GAO's central concern is information. The Navy built an oversight framework using tools typical of major defense acquisition programs, but it has not defined steps to reevaluate the program's objectives and resources as the work proceeds over decades. The Navy gives Congress reports and briefings, yet not consolidated, standardized information on full program costs and risks, because nothing requires it. In GAO's words, "Congress cannot ensure it receives a similar level of information for SIOP as it does for typical MDAPs." GAO also found that the roles of the organizations created to oversee and coordinate the work had not been fully documented.
GAO suggested that Congress consider requiring annual, consolidated and standardized SIOP status reports, covering both program-wide and project-level information, for the life of the program. It made three recommendations to the Navy: add periodic reevaluation of the program's validated requirements and performance parameters to its oversight framework, set specific steps and timing for annual sufficiency reviews of mission readiness, affordability and sustainability, and document the roles and relationships of key project management organizations. The Navy agreed and outlined steps to implement them.
The lessons reach beyond defense. Any owner of aging public infrastructure faces the same pattern GAO describes: early estimates that leave out costs, hazards reassessed mid-program, and decision makers who see pieces of a multi-decade effort rather than the whole.
Questions to ask local officials
| Ask | Who usually answers | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Which SIOP projects are planned at our shipyard in Block 1, and on what schedule? | Shipyard command, congressional delegation | Block 1 runs roughly from fiscal year 2026 to 2042, and later work stretches past 2080 |
| Has the cost estimate for our yard's dry-dock work changed since funding was first requested? | Congressional delegation, Navy officials | Portsmouth and Pearl Harbor dry-dock costs grew by more than $2.5 billion |
| Have seismic or environmental assessments at our yard been updated, and what did they find? | Shipyard command, NAVFAC | New seismic findings at Puget Sound drove more than $1 billion in retrofits and a redesign |
| Which aging shipyard buildings pose safety risks, and are repairs funded? | Shipyard command | Many facilities are 80 to over 120 years old with long-deferred maintenance |
| Will Congress require annual consolidated status reports on total SIOP cost and risk? | Congressional delegation, armed services and appropriations committees | GAO found Congress lacks consolidated, standardized cost and risk information |
| How will construction phasing affect local roads, utilities and emergency services? | City and county officials, shipyard community liaison | Work at active yards is planned to continue for decades |
For a related look at why maintaining defense facilities is a readiness question rather than routine upkeep, see the brief on range infrastructure and readiness.