Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which the Coast Guard has: (1) accurately depicted the need to replace or modernize its deepwater ships and aircraft; and (2) aligned the estimated cost of its Deepwater Project with its overall budget for capital projects. GAO noted that: (1) although the Coast Guard is correct in starting now to explore how best to modernize or replace its deepwater ships and aircraft, the Deepwater Project's only formal justification developed to date does not accurately or fully depict the need for replacement or modernization; (2) this justification concluded that most deepwater ships and aircraft would need to be phased out starting in the next 2 to 9 years; (3) however, subsequent analyses by the Coast Guard and others have shown that deepwater aircraft likely have a much longer life; (4) the justification asserted that these ships and aircraft were incapable of performing future missions or meeting future demand, but GAO was unable to validate these assertions from the information available; (5) the Coast Guard withdrew the justification on the basis of concerns expressed by the Office of Management and Budget and is now developing more accurate and updated information; (6) several of these studies are still under way, even as contracting teams have already begun work on developing their initial deepwater proposals; (7) any delays in communicating this updated information to the contractors could adversely affect the quality of the proposals submitted; (8) while the Coast Guard's acquisition approach seems an appropriate way to avoid a costly one-for-one replacement of ships and aircraft, the agency could face major financial obstacles in proceeding with a Deepwater Project costing as much as initially proposed for planning purposes; (9) at a projected $500 million a year, expenditures for the project would take virtually all of the Coast Guard's projected spending for all capital projects, which currently include the construction of new buoy tenders and motorized lifeboats; (10) the Coast Guard expects more than $165 million of the annual funding to come from new user fees for domestic ice-breaking and navigational services that the Coast Guard currently provides; (11) however, the congressional subcommittees with jurisdiction over the Coast Guard's budget have expressed opposition to such fees, and the House and Senate have prohibited the Coast Guard from planning or implementing any new user fees; (12) if hoped-for funding does not occur, the Coast Guard may be left having either to reduce the scope of the project or to stretch out the procurement period; and (13) many other government procurement projects have demonstrated that when agencies attempt to address a problem by stretching out the procurement period, administrative and other costs increase, resulting in lower value for the amount of money spent.