CT U.S. Rep Courtney enlists 100+ colleagues to press White House on submarine building
U.S. Rep Joe Courtney has recruited 120 colleagues in his continuing effort to press the White House and Pentagon to fund a second, new Virginia class submarine in the proposed national defense budget.
The second district Democrat, an influential voice in naval affairs as ranking member of the Seapower Subcommittee of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, obtained the signatures of the bipartisan group on a letter, made public this morning, urging the leadership of the House Appropriations Committee to reverse the Navy’s decision to break with recent tradition and pay for one rather than two Virginia class ships next year.
It is a tactic that has worked for Courtney in the past, earning him the nickname Two Sub Joe. Four years ago, he organized a similar letter and succeeded in restoring a second Virginia submarine that had been cut from the fiscal 2021 defense budget by the administration of former President Donald J. Trump.
The Groton-based Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, located in Courtney’s eastern Connecticut District, is the U.S. Navy’s prime submarine contractor and lead shipyard on both the Virginia attack and Columbia ballistic missile submarine programs. The Navy said it needs a dozen Columbias and 66 Virginias to carry out its mission, numbers that could keep shipyards and suppliers operating at old, Cold War production rates for decades.
Electric Boat is at the top of a submarine manufacturing and supply chain that has been hiring at a furious pace and investing billions of dollars in capacity in an effort to meet the aggressive Navy production goals designed to contain Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Electric Boat hired more than 5,000 last year and says it on track to match that pace far into the future.
Courtney argues that by eliminating a submarine, the Navy is sending the wrong message to thousands of companies in the submarine supply chain, locally and across the country, that have been investing in labor, equipment and material in the expectation of a steady naval procurement rate.
“We are deeply concerned with the proposal to procure just one Virginia Class submarine in the President’s proposed FY 2025 budget,” the letter to the committee chairs says. “In recent years, Congress has heard consistent and alarming testimony about the growing capabilities and increased undersea activity of competitors like Russia and China.”
Elsewhere, it says, “Preserving a consistent production schedule is essential for shipyard and industrial base stability, and to meet the Navy’s operational requirements. This is exactly why Congress has strongly supported and defended the consistent two-per-year build rate of Virginia Class attack submarines since 2011.”
Senior Naval officers have said the decision to cut a Virginia submarine was based on concern that the submarine industrial base lacks the capacity at present to meet its goal of delivering two Virginias and one Columbia a year by 2028. The Navy said it needs deliveries at that rate to meet national security needs while fulfilling its commitment to provide from three to five Virginia submarines to Australia under the tripartite AUKUS treaty.
Decades of flat, post-cold war spending shrunk the U.S. fleet by half. It also depleted the ranks of welders, shipfitters and riggers who build ships at Electric Boat and its partner in the Virginia and Columbia programs, the Newport News Shipbuilding Division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.
Courtney has said Electric Boat is on pace to meet the Navy’s production targets and that cutting a ship from the budget will slow production in the long term.