Panel OKs funding for $1.5 billion submarine

Connecticut stands to gain thousands of new jobs from the manufacturing project

A U.S. Senate committee has added $1.5 billion in the next federal budget for a third submarine, a big step toward the lucrative and coveted manufacturing project in southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The funding, approved Wednesday, is one step in approval of legislation authorizing spending for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. It’s part of a budget process involving the U.S. House of Representatives and requiring President Donald Trump’s signature.

The $1.5 billion would pay for about half of a third submarine. Electric Boat, a division of General Dynamics Corp., operates shipyards at Groton and Quonset Point, R.I.

The measure also includes spending for training and education to fill subma

rine manufacturing jobs. Workers are needed for the increased submarine manufacturing and to replace retiring baby boomers.

“The most frequent question I’m asked by Pentagon planners is, ‘Will you have the skilled workforce?’” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It means thousands of new jobs. We just can’t put out a classified ad.”

Electric Boat President Jeffrey Geiger said in January the company expected to hire 900 workers in Connecticut this year.

Benefiting from U.S. military strategy that’s turning to the oceans to check Russian and Chinese ambitions, Electric Boat surpassed17,000 employees for the first time since 1992 — up by 1,000 last year — Geiger said. Of that, about 12,000 are in Connecticut. It hired 2,241 workers last year and expects to bring on a total of 1,400 this year, with 500 in Rhode Island in addition to the 900 in Connecticut.

Employment is expected to reach 20,000 in the decade of the 2020s, Geiger said.

Connecticut’s state university system has been expanding its manufacturing training program to keep up with demand, but

its eight advanced manufacturing technology centers do not have the capacity for the number of graduates needed by the industry, the system said in February.

Manufacturers project hiring will reach roughly 2,500 workers a year through 2023. Between 2024 and 2028 the rate will increase to 3,000 annually due to U.S. defense requirements, new contracts and retirements, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities said. Between 25,000 and 35,000 workers are needed and either of those numbers “dwarfs CSCU’s current capacity,” the university system said.

Between 12,000 and 13,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled now, the higher education system said. This year, CSCU said it expects to produce 800 certificate students and train more than 2,000 incumbent workers.

Rep. Joe Courtney, DConn., a member of the House Armed Services Committee and whoseeastern Connecticut district includes the Electric Boat shipyard, said the bill includes authorization similar to a measure that advanced last week in the House.

“We’ve heard clear testimony from Navy officials that additional submarines are urgently needed to support our nation’s security,” he said.

Blumenthal said the U.S. submarine fleet is the “fulcrum of continuing military

force advantage that we have at sea” to face threats from Russia and China.

“Undersea warfare is now one of the most critical domains of military conflict,” he said.

An effort to add funding last year to the next Virginia-class contract was rejected, but Courtney said an effort in the House to avoid such a vote has succeeded. “We said, it’s not going to happen again,” he said.

Backers of the additional sub point to a 2016 Navy assessment calling for a fleet of 66 submarines from 48. Sustaining construction of two submarines a year is a “national imperative” and “every possible opportunity” should be used to add to that rate, Courtney said.

The Senate Armed Services Committee vote included nearly $4.7 billion for two Virginia-class submarines, nearly $4.3 billion in advance procurement for three Virginia-class submarines and more than $1.8 billion in advance procurement for the Columbiaclass submarine program.

Funding also is included for the F-35 fighter jet. Its engine is manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp., and CH-53Ks heavy-lift and Black Hawk helicopters made by Sikorsky Aircraft, a business of Lockheed Martin Corp.