The Navy's Strategic Homeporting Plan

GAO discussed the results of its review of the Navy's strategic home-porting plan in order to: (1) identify the Navy's basis for increasing the number of home ports; (2) ascertain the scope and cost of developing the new home ports; (3) determine existing home-port capacity to accommodate the ships to be assigned; and (4) compare the cost of home-porting the ships in existing facilities with the cost of constructing new home ports. The Navy based its home-porting plan on five strategic principles related to: (1) force dispersal; (2) battle group integrity; (3) industrial base utilization; (4) geographical considerations; and (5) logistical suitability. GAO found that: (1) the Navy had not done a definitive analysis showing the strategic benefits of new home ports, although there are indications that the benefits should be realized in varying degrees; (2) construction cost estimates are numerous, in various stages of development, and difficult to assess; (3) the existing home ports have the capacity to accommodate the ships included in the Navy's strategic home-porting plan; and (4) it would be considerably less costly to accommodate the ships in existing home ports than to establish new home ports.