[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 118 (Monday, July 22, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H4643-H4644]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RECRUITING YOUNG PEOPLE TO BUILD SUBMARINES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with the House an 
event which took place last Monday in East Hartford, Connecticut, at 
the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology. It was a gathering of 
educators, the U.S. Navy, and shipyard manufacturing, which is a part 
of the Connecticut economy, to announce a new initiative which is 
really going to define the job market and the economy of our State for 
the rest of the 21st century.
  Hire Hartford is an initiative that the Navy and Electric Boat 
shipyard have put together to expand the scope of recruitment and 
hiring for good careers. These are metal trades jobs and engineering 
and design jobs, which are all part of an effort that is going on right 
now that Congress has been funding for the last 10 years, which is to 
recapitalize our submarine fleet.
  Again, Electric Boat, which is in eastern Connecticut, the part of 
Connecticut that I represent, is a shipyard that has been in existence 
for about 120 years. We have a submarine base right up the Thames River 
that has about 16

[[Page H4644]]

attack submarines that operate out of Groton, Connecticut, which is 
where it is located. It is the oldest submarine base in the U.S. Again, 
between the shipyard and the base, eastern Connecticut has been, in my 
opinion, justifiably called the submarine capital of the world.

  Right now, we are at a place where, again, our country needs to 
recapitalize an aging fleet of submarines that were built back in the 
1970s and 1980s, and a tremendous amount of work is underway. Last 
year, Electric Boat hired 5,300 workers, some at the Quonset Point 
shipyard a little bit farther up the coastline in Rhode Island, about 
two-thirds of it in Connecticut.
  This picture shows some of the young 18- and 19-year-olds who are 
part of this effort who are going through career and technical 
education schools. Some of the regular comprehensive high schools have 
also created career pathways to teach people how to be welders, 
electricians, outside machinists, shipwrights. Again, this is some of 
the group that were hired this past spring.
  If you can see closely, these are 18- and 19-year-olds. They may go 
to college at some other point in their lives, but at this point they 
are about to get a badge and security pass so they can go out and be 
part of this amazing effort which, again, is a platform that the 
Pentagon and the U.S. Navy have identified as the most critical 
procurement program in the defense budget.
  Last year, we entered into an agreement with the Government of 
Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom called AUKUS which, 
again, is about trying to strengthen collaboration between the three 
countries to push back what is going on in the Indo-Pacific region, 
where China is exercising totally illegal efforts to control the 
maritime space.
  The one platform which, again, they cannot solve is nuclear-powered 
submarines. Australia has made a commitment to put $360 billion over 
the next 10 years, because they have an aging diesel electric fleet, to 
replace them with nuclear-powered submarines. Those boats are going to 
be built by these young people that are here and also those that 
because of the Hire Hartford event that we were at just a few days ago 
are going to now be recruited as part of this effort.
  My friend in the chair represents the State of Alabama. They are part 
of that effort, as well. Austal shipyard is now going to do steel 
fabrication to build these amazing vessels. A Columbia-class submarine, 
which is the new ballistic subs, are 20,000 tons. The Virginia attack 
submarines, which are the ones that carry conventional weapons and get 
in and out of places that, again, the Chinese Navy can't find, those 
are 7,800 tons. These are tremendous wonders of modern technology, 
incorporating nuclear power. They are, obviously, the state-of-the-art 
weapons systems that we need to create real deterrence and the talented 
crews that, again, do amazing work even at a young age.
  Hire Hartford, which expands the radius of recruitment out of eastern 
Connecticut into the central part of the State, was part of the program 
that we had this past Wednesday, which is going to incorporate the high 
schools, the job training programs for young adults, the University of 
Connecticut School of Engineering, which is training a lot of the new 
engineers that are part of this effort.
  It is all going to come together, again, all across the country 
because we need to make this a national effort to make sure that we 
have the Navy that we need in the 21st century.
  I congratulate all the organizers of this event, led by the Navy, the 
Submarine Industrial Base Council, which we just funded with a 
supplemental bill just a few weeks ago, as well as, again, the 
shipbuilders, the amazing men and women who are doing so much work to 
protect our Nation.

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