The Navy is canceling the long-stalled overhaul of the USS Boise, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine that has sat idle since 2015 while repair costs spiraled from ambitious to absurd. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced the decision Friday, telling Fox News Digital that the project no longer makes financial or strategic sense, and that the funding and skilled labor tied up in the Boise will be redirected toward building newer Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines.
The numbers tell a grim story of bureaucratic drift. The Navy has already spent roughly $800 million on the overhaul. Completing it would require another $1.9 billion, pushing the total near $3 billion. And for all that money, the Boise, commissioned in 1992, would return to sea with only about 20 percent of its remaining service life, enough for roughly three deployments.
Phelan did not mince words in an interview with the New York Post:
"At some point, you just cut your losses and move on."
The Boise's slide from operational warship to budget sinkhole unfolded over nearly a decade. The submarine last deployed in 2015. It was slated to begin a routine overhaul the following year. But delays at Navy shipyards left the boat waiting for an available dry dock, and waiting, and waiting.
By 2016, the Boise had lost its full operational certification. By 2017, it could no longer dive. The submarine that was supposed to be back in the fleet within a normal maintenance cycle instead sat tied up at port, deteriorating, while the Navy's industrial base struggled to keep pace with demand.
It was not until 2024, under the Biden administration, that the Navy finally awarded a contract to overhaul the vessel. That contract was valued at roughly $1.2 billion. Even then, repairs were not expected to finish until 2029, meaning the Boise would have spent approximately 15 years inactive before returning to service.
The broader context makes the waste harder to ignore. At a time when the White House is weighing troop posture shifts to hold allies accountable and strengthen American deterrence, every dollar and every skilled welder counts.
Phelan laid out the cost-benefit case in blunt terms. The Boise overhaul represents 65 percent of the cost of a brand-new Virginia-class submarine, he said, yet it would deliver only 20 percent of the remaining service life. The work was just 22 percent complete after consuming $800 million.
"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."
That math is damning. Taxpayers were being asked to keep pouring billions into a submarine that would yield a handful of deployments before reaching the end of its hull life. Meanwhile, the Navy's shipyards face a severe labor and engineering bottleneck, one that directly affects the production timelines for the submarines the fleet actually needs.
Phelan identified the labor constraint as a key reason to redirect resources. He noted that submarine construction depends on a finite pool of skilled workers and engineers, and a large share of that talent was committed to the Boise project.
"One of our big constraints in our shipyards, particularly in submarine building, is labor and engineering talent. We have a lot of that dedicated to this, which we could free up and put onto the Virginia-class submarine or Columbia and try to shift the schedule left on those."
The cancellation did not come without warning. During a confirmation hearing in June 2025, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-N.D., posed a direct question about the Boise's future:
"Is it time we just simply pull the plug on that one?"
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle had already described the Boise saga in stark terms, calling it "an unacceptable story" and "like a dagger in the heart" for the submarine force. When the Navy's top uniformed submarine officer uses that kind of language, the writing is on the bulkhead.
The question that lingers is why it took so long for anyone to act. The submarine lost dive certification in 2017. The Biden administration did not award an overhaul contract until 2024, seven years later. By that point, the project's economics had deteriorated from bad to indefensible. The decision to finally award that $1.2 billion contract, knowing the full scope of delays and cost growth, deserves scrutiny of its own.
As the administration navigates complex security decisions, from pausing military strikes against Iranian energy sites to managing force readiness, the ability to build and maintain submarines is not an abstract budget line. It is the backbone of American undersea deterrence.
Phelan acknowledged that no single factor doomed the Boise. He pointed to a combination of engineering complexity, COVID-related disruptions, and sustained pressure on the industrial base.
"I can't point to one thing that killed it. I think it was a combination... the complexity of the engineering, COVID impacts, and pressure on the industrial base."
That explanation is honest as far as it goes. But it also describes a system that lacked the discipline to kill a failing program before it consumed $800 million. The Navy's culture of accepting delays and rising costs, Phelan's own characterization, allowed the Boise to linger in bureaucratic limbo for a decade.
Phelan said the cancellation is part of a broader effort to reevaluate underperforming programs across the service. He pledged "radical transparency" and a shift in how the Navy approaches acquisitions.
"We're reviewing every program. We need to be more disciplined and move out faster. The president wants things yesterday."
That urgency is overdue. China has built the world's largest navy by number of ships, and every year the United States spends refurbishing Cold War-era hulls instead of delivering new boats is a year the gap narrows. The recent cease-fire deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz bought time in one theater, but the Pacific demands submarines that can actually submerge.
The Boise debacle is a case study in what happens when no one in the chain of command has the authority, or the will, to say "stop." A submarine that should have entered a routine overhaul cycle in 2016 instead became a decade-long money pit. The Biden-era decision to award a $1.2 billion contract for a vessel that had already been deteriorating for eight years compounded the problem rather than solving it.
Redirecting those resources toward Virginia- and Columbia-class production is the right call. The Columbia class carries the nation's sea-based nuclear deterrent. The Virginia class is the workhorse of the attack submarine fleet. Both programs face delivery delays. Both need every welder and engineer the shipyards can muster.
The internal debates shaping American military posture extend well beyond submarines. As lawmakers debate the scope of military commitments abroad, the ability to field a credible fleet is the foundation on which every other option rests.
Cutting the Boise loose is a start. But $800 million is already gone, and the taxpayers who funded a submarine that will never dive again deserve to know how the system let it get this far.
When a government program burns through $800 million and delivers 22 percent of a repair job on a boat that can't submerge, the problem isn't the boat. It's the institution that kept writing the checks.