The Cost of the Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter
Report
CBO estimates that a three-ship Polar Security Cutter program would cost $5.1 billion in 2024 dollars—about 60 percent more than the Coast Guard’s current estimate. Operating those three ships would cost $12.4 billion through 2063.
On April 23, 2019, the Coast Guard awarded a contract to VT Halter Marine to build the first of a class of new heavy polar icebreakers, called the Polar Security Cutter (PSC). The service plans to name the first ship the Polar Sentinel. On December 29, 2021, the Coast Guard exercised an option under that contract to have Halter Marine build the second ship of the class. Halter Marine was subsequently purchased by Bollinger Shipyards in November 2022 and renamed Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding.
Construction of the lead ship in the PSC program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. In February 2024, the Coast Guard notified the Congress that the ship would experience cost growth in excess of 20 percent and a schedule delay in excess of one year. Despite a contract awarded five years ago, full construction of the lead ship has not begun, although the service is aiming to start by the end of calendar year 2024.
The Congressional Budget Office was asked by the House Homeland Security Committee to provide independent estimates of the costs of the PSC program—not only for the three-ship program of record (that is, the officially approved program) but also for larger programs including as many as nine ships. This report describes those estimates.
Using its own weight-based cost model, CBO estimates that the first PSC would cost $1.9 billion in 2024 dollars. Subsequent ships would average about $1.6 billion each. Given those estimates, the three-ship PSC program would cost $5.1 billion—about 60 percent more than the Coast Guard’s current estimate.
The Coast Guard’s current official estimate of the cost of acquiring three PSCs is $3.2 billion, but the service is in the process of developing a new estimate, which it expects to release later in 2024.
CBO estimates that operating and supporting a force of three PSCs would cost $12.4 billion between 2029 and 2063, when those ships would be in service. If the Coast Guard acquires more than three ships, operating costs would be higher and would continue for a longer period.
