The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis at Newport News, Va., in July 2024. The Stennis is in Newport News Shipyard conducting a refueling and overhaul to prepare the ship for the second half of its 50-year service life. (Max Biesecker/U.S. Navy)
WASHINGTON — Pentagon programs that are delayed and over budget by 15% or more could be cut, according to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
The order, dubbed “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base,” gives the Defense Department 90 days to review all major defense acquisitions programs and compile a “potential cancellation list” of those that are taking too long or costing too much. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the order reads, can recommend programs be cut if they are not aligned with mission priorities.
“The defense acquisition workforce is a national strategic asset that will be decisive in any conflict, where the factory floor can be just as significant as the battlefield,” the executive order reads. “Unfortunately, after years of misplaced priorities and poor management, our defense acquisition system does not provide the speed and flexibility our armed forces need to have decisive advantages in the future.”
The order doesn’t detail specific programs that could be on the chopping block, but a fact sheet that the White House released the same day references, without providing names, nine shipbuilding programs that are one to three years behind schedule.
“For decades, mountains of red tape have stifled innovation and slowed the defense industrial base’s ability to respond to emerging global threats and even basic requirements,” the fact sheet reads.
Several shipbuilding programs were identified in 2024 by then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro for falling behind schedule by up to 36 months, including Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines, the Constellation-class frigates, and Ford-class aircraft carriers.
The first Columbia-class submarine is projected to be 12 to 16 months late. The fourth and fifth blocks, or more modernized versions, of the Virginia-class submarines are 36 and 24 months late. The first Constellation-class frigate is approximately 36 months behind schedule. The third Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, is approximately 18 to 26 months late.
According to Del Toro’s review, issues with ships that are first of a class included changing ship designs and the transition from designing the ship to building the ship. Issues across a class of ships included problems with acquisition and contract strategy, supply chains and having a skilled workforce.
The fact sheet also calls out the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, which has been inactive at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia since 2021 for a refueling and overhaul. Aircraft carriers are overhauled after about 25 years to extend their lifespans to a cumulative 50 years. The overhaul incorporates upgrades to propulsion equipment, infrastructure and electronic systems, as well as refuels the carrier’s nuclear reactors. It is a process that is meant to take four years, but HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, which is conducting the overhaul, estimates the Stennis won’t be delivered back to the Navy until October 2026.
Originally, the Stennis was slated to complete the overhaul in August 2025 — on track with a four-year schedule — but the unplanned repairs to a damaged steam turbine generator delayed the ship’s progress. The same problem was discovered when overhauling the USS George Washington from 2017-2023. Navy leaders and HII officials attributed the Washington’s six years in the shipyard to the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the supply chain and workforce.
“With adversaries like China and Russia rapidly advancing their own military technologies, it is essential to prioritize speed, flexibility, and innovation to deliver cutting-edge capabilities to our armed forces,” the White House fact sheet reads.
The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, has reported multiple times in recent months that the way the Navy manages its construction and maintenance of warships needs to be overhauled. As a result of the Navy’s poor management, the Constellation-class frigate program is at a standstill because the service and the shipbuilder haven’t determined how to build the ships, Shelby Oakley, the GAO’s director of contracting and national security acquisitions teams, told the House Armed Services Committee last month.
“The program is at least three years behind schedule because the Navy has changed the design of the ship throughout the construction process,” Oakley said.
The Navy began work on the first Constellation frigate in 2022 with a then-estimated price tag of $1.3 billion. But estimates have since ballooned by more than $200 million, and delivery of the ship has been delayed by three years to 2029, according to the GAO.
The Constellation program is at a “tipping point,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said Wednesday during a panel at the 2025 Sea Air Space Symposium in National Harbor, Md. The program started with 85% of the design complete and budgeted, with 15% left to add. But now, the over-budget and stagnating program has had its design percentages reversed — with 15% of the original design solidified and 85% of unplanned add-ons, said Wittman, who is chairman the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces subpanel.
“The question is: Are we at a point where we either quickly recover and get back on track with this?” Wittman asked. “Or do you say maybe we’re too far along with this and we go in a different direction? The Navy is going to have to ask that question now. It can’t push it off in the future.”
