That is a tenfold increase from the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program’s initial estimate of at least $21 billion over 20 years when it was launched in 2018. GAO Director Diana Moldafsky told ENR by email that the new projection is based on Navy shipyard cost analyses, project schedules and plans being finalized during the audit.

Moldafsky says no single factor drove the increase. The original estimate omitted major elements such as utilities and roads and did not adequately account for cost sensitivity or escalation. Project scopes expanded, additional work was identified and construction costs rose, including through pandemic-era volatility in fuel, timber, concrete and steel prices.

The Navy characterizes the 2018 figure as a rough-order-of-magnitude estimate based on infrastructure projects then under consideration. Mark Edelson, the Navy’s program executive officer for Infrastructure and Expeditionary, said in a statement to ENR that SIOP’s scope has since expanded to include repair projects, transportation infrastructure, utility systems, environmental work and program-management costs.

The $200-billion projection is expressed in then-year dollars and is not yet a final validated Navy cost estimate, Moldafsky says. The Navy is still finalizing a full-program cost and schedule baseline, but agreed with GAO’s conclusion based on current plans.

“It was the maturation of the projects’ scope and cost, including construction and engineering requirements—all while keeping the shipyards functional—that drove the longer schedule and growth in the cost estimates,” Moldafsky says.

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As recently as May, Navy officials told the House Armed Services Committee that the modernization program had completed 54 projects totaling more than $1.4 billion, with another 43 worth $6.3 billion under contract. The Navy now says more than 60 of more than 400 planned facility projects have been completed since 2018. The fiscal 2027 budget devotes $1.8 billion to it.

The program is now planned for execution in three overlapping blocks spanning decades. Near-term work focuses on projects with the most mature scopes, including dry docks and piers, while later construction extends into the 2070s. The last currently planned projects are not scheduled for completion until after 2080, although officials told GAO those timelines remain rough estimates.

Three new dry-dock projects at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Hawaii and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Washington state are the Navy’s largest-ever infrastructure projects, according to GAO, with a combined estimated cost of $21.7 billion.

At Portsmouth, a project under construction since 2021 to expand Dry Dock 1 for Virginia-class submarines, now carries $2.46 billion in requested authorization and is expected to finish in May 2029. The constrained island site requires massive concrete floor monoliths to be constructed about 200 miles away and barged to the shipyard.

At a June 2025 Senate hearing, Acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby said the Portsmouth project was on track. He compared rebuilding an operating shipyard to “ripping out bays one and three” at a Jiffy Lube while continuing to work in bay two.

Costs for the Portsmouth and Pearl Harbor dry-dock projects together have increased by more than $2.5 billion from the amounts originally requested, according to GAO. Those increases contributed to revisions of major projects and broader shipyard plans.

Lessons from Portsmouth and Pearl Harbor led the Navy to bring contractors into later projects earlier, Moldafsky says. She says industry feedback on logistics, engineering and staging at Puget Sound contributed to significant changes, including a decision to demolish one of the shipyard’s largest buildings to provide space for preparing and staging construction.

The Navy offered a narrower characterization of the design changes. Edelson says contractor involvement and value engineering produced two major changes—additional laydown space and a simplified cofferdam approach—but says “the project was not totally redesigned.” Design began in 2022 and included three business-case analyses that concluded a graving dry dock at Bremerton offered the best-value solution based on cost, operations and environmental effects, he says.

Puget Sound is the largest of the three projects. Plans include a new dry dock capable of supporting Virginia-class submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers, along with demolishing and relocating an existing dry dock, piers and critical facilities. Site-preparation demolition is planned for 2027 and dry-dock construction for 2030, with completion targeted for 2038. The project carries $14.76 billion in requested authorization in the fiscal 2027 budget.

ENR reported in June that the dry dock was estimated at $7 billion to $10 billion as part of a broader $14.8-billion Puget Sound modernization. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command was also preparing a multiple-award construction contract with a ceiling of up to $30 billion for the dry dock and other modernization waterfront work.

Beyond those three dry docks, 140 construction projects are already completed, underway or sufficiently advanced in design to enter budget requests over the next two or three fiscal years, according to GAO. They total about $33.45 billion, with Puget Sound accounting for 50 projects and about $19.56 billion. The broader $200-billion projection includes work planned across the five-decade program.

Planning and project development ultimately took more than eight years. GAO attributes the longer timeline in part to the Navy not fully accounting for the complexity and uncertainty of planning numerous large projects across four operating shipyards.

Congress had already sought additional information. In April, Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) secured House Appropriations Committee language directing the Navy to provide long-term cost and schedule information for planned waterfront production facilities at each public shipyard and identify steps that could accelerate construction.

Yet lawmakers still do not receive consolidated, standardized information showing full program costs, spending to date, remaining funding requirements, schedule baselines and risks, GAO found.

The watchdog recommended that Congress consider requiring annual standardized reporting. It also made three recommendations to the Navy to periodically reassess the upgrade program, review whether resources remain sufficient and better document management responsibilities. The Navy concurred with all three.

Navy leadership is preparing to conduct the Milestone B/C review and approve a comprehensive multidecade SIOP plan identifying projects, sequencing and costs across all four shipyards, Edelson says. GAO found, however, that the service has not established how it will periodically reassess program objectives and resources as construction extends toward 2080 and beyond.