The Armed Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has authorized a fiscal 2025 defense budget that would send nearly $20 billion to Connecticut manufacturers, including $1 billion to restore funding for a second attack submarine the U.S. Navy cut from its proposed budget.
The spending package could change. It needs approval by the House and may be modified by a conference with the Senate, depending on the version now moving through that body at a slower pace.
But to the extent that the House armed services version of the budget remains intact, the bulk of the Connecticut spending — as much as $15.8 billion — would reach the state’s southeastern corner, where the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics continues to hire at a furious pace to meet the Navy’s aggressive plan to expand its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The remaining $3.3 billion is targeted at three mainstays in the state aerospace industry — Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, Kaman Aerospace in Bloomfield and Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford. Most aerospace spending, nearly $2.8 billion, would fund production of Sikorsky’s King Stallion and Blackhawk helicopters.
Most of the discussion so far about next year’s spending has focused on submarines, in particular the Pentagon’s decision to cut one of two Virginia class attack submarines from the budget and the so far successful push in Congress, led by Second District Democrat Joe Courtney, to put it back.
Courtney said last week, shortly after the Armed Services Committee voted out its spending package late Wednesday, that he believes that there is support to keep the second Virginia class boat in the budget.
“I would just say that I’m feeling very bullish in terms of our conversations with our partners in supporting what we did with adding the Virginia class submarine,” he said. “I’m definitely feeling that we are in pretty solid shape. The communication with the Senate is happening and I think there are definitely folks in the Senate who have publicly stated their support for adding the submarine back.”
Support is, if anything, more solid in the House, where earlier this year, Courtney collected signatures from a third of the members on a letter calling for restoration of the second submarine to the defense budget.
Courtney has become an influential voice in defense matters as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee’s Seapower Subcommittee and his fingerprints were on nearly all defense spending targeting the state, including aerospace programs outside his eastern Connecticut district, where Electric Boat has been hiring more than 5,000 a year and now employs about 23,000.
He wrote a budget provision that would authorize the Pentagon to order Sikorsky helicopters on a multi-year basis, a measure intended to enable better advance planning by the helicopter manufacturer and its contractors, while stabilizing the workforce across the industrial base. The proposed budget calls for 19 of Sikorsky’s King Stallion helicopters.
The armed Services committee budget would keep sub construction in Groton going for years. It includes $4.72 billion for the Virginia class attack submarine program, $1 billion to restore the ship the Pentagon cut and $3.72 billion on long lead time planning and acquisition for future ships.
It would spend another $9.56 billion on the Columbia class ballistic missile submarines, also being built at Electric Boat. The money would be divided between the Wisconsin, which is under construction, and long lead time planning for future Columbia submarines.
Another $1.6 billion would reach southeastern Connecticut businesses for research and development programs to improve submarine operational capabilities. Of that, nearly $800 million would be divided between the Virginia and Columbia programs, as well as what is being called the SSN(X) program, the submarines now being developed as the follow-on to the Virginia submarine fleet.
Two Groton companies would split $17 million under the proposed budget, Progeny System, which designs systems to improve submarine maneuverability at low speeds, and Thayer Mahan, which has partnered with an Australian company to develop unmanned, undersea, acoustic surveillance systems.
Spending on submarine programs has become a priority as the Pentagon seeks to preserve U.S. dominance in underwater warfare.
The Columbia ballistic missile program, which some have said consists of the most technologically complex weapons systems ever designed, has been made the nation’s top defense priority.
Continued production of Virginia class attack submarines on an aggressive schedule is a key component of the AUKUS security agreement, recently signed by Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. and designed to guard against the explosive growth of the Chinese navy and that country’s expansionist moves in the Indo-Pacific region.
AUKUS calls for the U.S. to sell three Virginia submarines to Australia, one sub in each of the years 2032, 2035 and 2038. The first two would be submarines to be decommissioned from U.S. Navy service and third would be new.
Part of Courtney’s argument for restoring a submarine to the 2025 defense budget is that, without the added ship, the U.S. risks not having sufficient inventory to meet its treaty obligation to the Australians, who have invested $3 billion in what is known as the U.S. submarine industrial base in an effort to maintain an aggressive U.S. shipbuilding pace.
A condition of the sale to Australia under AUKUS is that whoever is U.S. president at the time must certify that the sale would not leave the U.S. Navy unable to meet national defense needs.
“And that is why I think restoring that sub to the production schedule is really a strong message to that president that we have an adequate fleet size and also to our partners in Australia, who are putting $3 billion into the US industrial base to try to increase capacity,” Courtney said.
Courtney said the U.S. Navy supports sales to Australia.
“The Navy actually feels very strongly that the benefits of having Australia with nuclear powered submarines in the Indo-Pacific region, sort of forward deployed, is beneficial to our submarine fleet,” he said.
The Pentagon wants a fleet of about a dozen Columbia class submarines and about 65 Virginia class subs. Construction of the first Columbia is underway in Groton. Electric Boat has delivered 24 Virginia submarines to the Navy and plans to deliver two more before the end of the year.
Restoring the Virginia submarine to the budget is critical to Electric Boat’s ability to maintain a steady production pace, which is necessary to keeping a stable workforce and sending orders to subcontractors at a consistent rate, Courtney said. The Navy’s two-ship-per-year procurement rate over the last 13 years has made it possible for Electric Boat to grow its workforce to the current level of 23,000.
“And all the estimates on new hiring were built around a two per year procurement rate, which is going to take that 23,000 figure higher to 28,000,” Courtney said. “So from a hiring standpoint, workforce standpoint, supply chain standpoint, restoring the two-per-year cadence I think really provides stability in terms of hiring decisions as well as investment by supply chain companies. And some of those are in the eastern Connecticut region.”
The proposed defense budget also promises to have a major impact on the quality of life for many of the most junior enlisted personnel among the 9,000 sailors assigned to the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in Groton and scattered across southeastern Connecticut.
The budget would provide a 20% pay increase to sailors rated E4 or lower, about 25% of whom now qualify for food stamp benefits.
“That’s really an unacceptable, almost embarrassing state of affairs,” Courtney said. “And that’s where I think this bipartisan initiative right before Memorial Day really sends a message.”
