Navy scraps Biden-era submarine contract as overhaul costs surge toward $3B
The Navy is canceling a long-delayed overhaul of the USS Boise after costs ballooned to nearly $3 billion, with Secretary of the Navy John Phelan saying the submarine no longer...
By Fox News · Fox News
The Navy is canceling a long-delayed overhaul of the USS Boise after costs ballooned to nearly $3 billion, with Secretary of the Navy John Phelan saying the submarine no longer made financial or strategic sense to repair. In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Phelan said the Los Angeles-class attack submarine had already consumed roughly $800 million and would require another $1.9 billion to complete — despite offering only about 20% of its remaining service life. Instead, the Navy plans to redirect funding and skilled labor toward building and delivering newer Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, part of a broader push to accelerate ship production and overhaul troubled acquisition programs. "At some point, you just cut your losses and move on," Phelan said. The Navy originally awarded a roughly $1.2 billion contract in 2024 under the Biden administration to overhaul the submarine, nearly a decade after it was first slated for repairs, but updated estimates later showed the total cost to complete the work had surged far beyond initial projections. " The Boise has been pier-side since 2015, cost nearly $800 million already, and it's only 22% complete — the math really does not work," he added. TRUMP UNVEILS MARITIME ACTION PLAN AS CHINA DOMINATES GLOBAL SHIPBUILDING The decision comes as the Navy faces mounting pressure to expand and maintain its fleet amid growing competition with China, which has built the world’s largest navy by number of ships. U.S. officials have increasingly emphasized the need to speed up shipbuilding and submarine production to keep pace with rising global demands. Boise’s problems long predate the canceled contract. The submarine last deployed in 2015 and was slated to begin a routine overhaul the following year, but delays at Navy shipyards left it waiting years for an available dry dock. As maintenance was pushed back, the situation worsened. The submarine lost its full operational certification in 2016 and its ability to…