Coast Guard’s newest icebreakers may jump 60 percent in cost: CBO

WASHINGTON — An independent government watchdog estimates the US Coast Guard’s program to build three new heavy icebreakers will cost roughly $5.1 billion, a 60 percent increase over the service’s current projections of $3.2 billion.

Those numbers come from a new Congressional Budget Office report, produced at the behest of the House Homeland Security Committee, and published today.

“CBO estimates that operating and supporting a force of three [Polar Security Cutters] would cost $12.4 billion between 2029 and 2063, when those ships would be in service,” according to the new report. “If the Coast Guard acquires more than three ships, operating costs would be higher and would continue for a longer period.”

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It’s common for CBO and the Coast Guard or Navy to disagree on the projected price of a future ship. These differences stem from assumptions analysts must make about inflation, the cost of materials and other future economic variables. In its report, CBO states the Coast Guard is in the middle of calculating a new cost estimate and plans to release those figures later this year.

But what makes predicting the price of the Polar Security Cutter even more difficult is that analysts often use existing ships to help them model what a future ship should cost. In this case, the United States has not produced a heavy icebreaker in more than four decades.

To do its analysis for lawmakers, CBO settled on using the only operational American heavy icebreaker, Polar Star, the USCG’s medium icebreaker Healy and the Navy’s San Antonio-class amphibious warships.

“None of those analogues are ideal for the analysis,” according to CBO. “As a heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star would seem to be the best fit, but it is also the oldest of the ships, having been completed in 1976. The Coast Guard was unable to provide any cost history of the ship as a result. The Healy was completed in 2000, but it is a medium icebreaker and, therefore, is not built for quite the same set of missions that the PSC will perform. The LPD-17s [San Antonio-class], which are still being produced, are almost the same size as the PSC.”

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The Coast Guard in April 2019 tapped VT Halter Marine out of a crowded field of other shipbuilders to produce the Polar Security Cutter. In December 2021, the service exercised a contract option to begin work on the second ship in the class. Since then, Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana acquired VT Halter Marine and has taken control of the program.

CBO’s report comes just weeks after the Biden administration announced during the NATO Summit a new security agreement with Canada and Finland, dubbed ICE Pact, aimed directly at strengthening all three countries’ icebreaker fleets. The leaders during the initial announcement promised a joint memorandum of understanding would come later this year laying out more specific plans, but administration officials have said the Coast Guard, Pentagon and Bollinger will all have roles to play in the new agreement.