Coast Guard's record funding comes with no plan to measure results
Summary
In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress included nearly $25 billion in FY2025 funding for the Coast Guard -- the largest single commitment of funding in the service's history -- for cutters, aircraft, and modernized infrastructure under its Force Design 2028 transformation. The Coast Guard plans to obligate $20 billion of it by the end of 2026 and has already committed about $2.4 billion to Arctic Security Cutter contracts. But GAO's June 30, 2026 testimony found the effort lacks a performance plan to measure whether any of it works, and rests on workforce numbers the service hasn't verified: as of March 2026, only 26% of the Coast Guard's total workforce had an up-to-date requirements assessment, up from 6% in 2020 -- even as Force Design sets a goal of growing the service by 15,000 uniformed members. Since 2019, GAO has made 12 recommendations across four Coast Guard reform efforts; 5 remain open. Since 2012, it has made 54 recommendations on Coast Guard acquisition management; 16 remain open as of June 2026.
Billions moving fast, with no plan to measure results
The Coast Guard plans to obligate $20 billion⧉ of the $25 billion One Big Beautiful Bill Act funding by the end of calendar year 2026, and has already committed about $2.4 billion to Arctic Security Cutter contracts. But found the Coast Guard has not developed a performance plan⧉ or similar mechanism to assess Force Design's results -- its foundational documents include no direction to evaluate whether actions are meeting the service's goals, and a January 2026 progress update doesn't systematically measure outcomes against the plan. made two recommendations: update the foundational documents with measurable targets, and build an evaluation plan for each reform area.
A 15,000-person growth target with an unclear basis
Force Design sets a goal of growing the Coast Guard's workforce by 15,000 uniformed members⧉, which officials describe as a minimum tied to the assets the service is acquiring. But found the service still doesn't know its own staffing needs well: in 2020, the Coast Guard had completed up-to-date workforce requirement determinations for just 6% of its workforce; by March 2026, that had risen to only about 26%. Without data covering the rest of the workforce, said, the basis for the 15,000-person target is unclear.
View data as table
| 2020 | 6% |
|---|---|
| March 2026 | 26% |
The pattern isn't new
Force Design is the Coast Guard's fifth reform effort has evaluated since 2019. Across the prior four -- addressing sexual misconduct, modernizing mission planning, reorganizing the reserve component, and reorganizing deployable specialized forces -- GAO made 12 recommendations⧉; the Coast Guard fully addressed 7, and 5 remain open as of June 2026. On the acquisition side, where the new funding is concentrated, the record is thinner still: since 2012, GAO has made 54 recommendations⧉ on managing major acquisition programs -- covering billions in cost growth, years of schedule delays, and an unaffordable portfolio -- and 16 remain open. The Coast Guard has also not completed a cost-and-sequencing analysis recommended in December 2024 for its polar icebreaker fleet, and it disagreed with a November 2025 recommendation to stabilize the Offshore Patrol Cutter's design before authorizing more ships.
View data as table
| Fully addressed | 7 |
|---|---|
| Open | 5 |
View data as table
| Addressed | 38 |
|---|---|
| Open | 16 |
The takeaway
- The largest funding commitment in Coast Guard history is moving fast, with no plan to check it's working. The service plans to obligate $20 billion of its $25 billion FY2025 windfall by the end of 2026, but found Force Design has no performance plan to assess whether that spending achieves its goals.
- A 15,000-person growth target rests on incomplete data. Only 26% of the Coast Guard's workforce had an up-to-date staffing assessment as of March 2026, up from just 6% in 2020 -- leaving unable to confirm the basis for Force Design's headline staffing goal.
- The oversight backlog behind this reform is not new. 5 of 12 recommendations from four prior reform efforts since 2019 remain open, and 16 of 54 acquisition-management recommendations since 2012 remain open -- a track record the new funding is now being layered onto.
All findings are from -26-109215, "Coast Guard: Actions Needed to Help Ensure Effective Use of Billions in Funding for Modernization Efforts," testimony of Triana McNeil before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, delivered and publicly released June 30, 2026 -- read directly in full (16 pages), not just the Highlights summary. Recommendation-status tallies reflect 's own reporting as of June 2026; the underlying reports on each reform and acquisition topic are cited within this testimony and were not separately re-verified here.
Sources(1) ▾
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Coast Guard: Actions Needed to Help Ensure Effective Use of Billions in Funding for Modernization Efforts (2026-06-30) — -26-109215, testimony of Triana McNeil, Director of Homeland Security and Justice, before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, delivered and publicly released June 30, 2026. Read the full 16-page PDF directly (extracted with pdftotext -layout), not just the Highlights page Artemis sealed at capture time -- the full text carries the recommendation tallies across four prior reform efforts and 54 acquisition recommendations since 2012, the workforce-assessment-coverage figures, and the Force Design funding/obligation detail the Highlights summary only gestures at. Direct gao.gov PDF asset access intermittently returns HTTP 403; a Wayback Machine capture of the direct PDF asset serves as the one-click original-document link. gao.gov · original document
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The U.S. Coast Guard is undertaking what it calls its largest transformation since World War II. In May 2025, announced Force Design 2028⧉, a reform meant to modernize the service's organization, people, technology, and acquisitions. Congress backed it with money: nearly $25 billion in FY2025 funding⧉ in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act -- the largest single commitment of funding in Coast Guard history -- on top of a typical $13.5 billion FY2026 appropriation. 's June 30, 2026 testimony asked a simple question: does the Coast Guard have a way to know if any of it is working?