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Dear Friend,
After 15 excruciating roll call votes over the course of a week for Speaker of the House, the 118th Congress finally was gaveled into session. I, along with the whole body, was officially sworn in at 2AM Saturday morning, and as always, I'm grateful to the people of eastern Connecticut for entrusting me to your representative.
Now, I'm here with an update on my work in Washington this week and some recent visits I made in eastern Connecticut. Thanks for starting your weekend here with me.
Leading a Bipartisan Letter in Support of AUKUS
This week, even during the Speaker votes, I was working on both sides of the aisle to send an urgent bipartisan letter to the President, reiterating Congress’s support for the trilateral security agreement between Australia, the UK, and the U.S. (AUKUS). AUKUS is one of the most important partnerships we’ve forged in decades. At its core is the goal to help our Australian allies establish their own fleet of nuclear-propelled submarines to help ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific. When AUKUS was announced in 2021, it was understood that developing a plan to make that happen would take some time. In March, we’re expecting the first details of that plan to be revealed. There’s been some premature handwringing about this effort, but the multi-member letter strongly affirmed that America’s potential to help provide Australia with a new submarine fleet in conjunction with the British Navy, is far from what some have called a “zero-sum game.”
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| This week, Rep. Courtney led a bipartisan letter to the President, reiterating Congress's strong support for the AUKUS agreement |
As eastern Connecticut has demonstrated over the last 100 years, our submarine industrial base is strong, and it’s growing thanks to bipartisan investments we’ve made to help increase submarine production for our own U.S. Navy. America’s shipyards are still producing 2 Virginia-class submarines per year—and they’ve been doing so even while overcoming challenges from COVID—and now they’re taking on construction of the new Columbia-class submarine, too. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act included some historic investments to grow them even more, including $541 million to enhance supplier development and shipyard infrastructure, and over $220 million for submarine workforce development. It’s because of investments like these that our nation is well positioned to take a hands-on role in delivering on AUKUS—if that’s the direction our three nations decide to take—and it could prove to be a huge benefit to our region’s economy.
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| The Atomic Energy Act, also known as the McMahon Act, was introduced by Senator Brien McMahon (third from right) of Connecticut. It was signed into law by President Truman in 1946, and prohibited the sharing of nuclear technology with any other country. Congress amended the McMahon Act in order to provide the British Navy with nuclear propulsion technology, and now Rep. Courtney argues that Congress can take similar action to support our Australian allies. |
After pulling together our bipartisan letter of support to the President, I penned an op-ed with Breaking Defense laying out how Congress should approach the AUKUS agreement to ensure that Australia receives the capabilities it needs, while also making sure we’re able to deliver on behalf of the U.S. Navy. We’ve done this before—after WWII, when the U.S. shared nuclear-propulsion technology with the British—and I’m confident we’ve got what it takes do it again.
A New, Larger Senior Center for People in Griswold
Last month, we celebrated an emotional and long-awaited milestone for seniors in eastern New London County: the official ribbon-cutting for the new Griswold Seniors Community Wellness Center. This day was years in the making, and it took lots of work through challenges and difficult times during the pandemic to make the project a success. My team and I worked closely with Senior Center Director Tina Falck, the town, and community leaders to secure federal resources for completion of the new senior center building. Now, the result is a beautiful space where older Griswold residents to congregate, build community, and access needed services—and it’s 3x the size of the former Senior Center. Read more here in the Norwich Bulletin.
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| The New Griswold Senior Center is three times the size of the old building – allowing for expanded services |
We’ve needed an upgraded Senior Center in Griswold for a while now. My office’s involvement in the project goes back in 2018, when we began working with the town to identify federal funding opportunities to build it. The Senior Center has long provided a great service to the town—for example, their Meals on Wheels program serves 4,000 meals annually between home delivery and the in-house café, and they continued to provide meal support throughout the pandemic. In June of 2021, my office helped the Town of Griswold secure a federal USDA grant of $411,800 to help build out a commercial kitchen at the new Senior Center. The increased size and facility improvements in the kitchen and throughout the new building will mean the Meals on Wheels program, and all the services they provide to Griswold can be enhanced and can better reach a growing older population. A big thank you to Senior Center Director Tina Falck for welcoming me at the ribbon cutting. She and her team do excellent work on behalf of our region’s seniors, and she has been instrumental in the completion of the new building.
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| Rep. Courtney's office worked closely with Director Tina Falck (right, podium), the Town of Griswold, and community leaders to secure federal grant funding for the new Griswold Senior Community Wellness Center |
Visiting CLiCK's Commercial Kitchen in Willimantic
We have such a great local food scene here in eastern Connecticut – created by so many excellent farmers and culinary entrepreneurs. In Willimantic, CLiCK’s commercial shared kitchen provides those in the Windham area with a space to grow their businesses. I stopped by last month to catch up with a few – like KD Crop Farms and Cambera Farm & Bakery – and to hear from CLiCK about their work to grow eastern CT’s food-business community with the help of federal funding. Recently, CLiCK was awarded a USDA Rural Business Development grant to help grow their Willimantic kitchen by upgrading its marketing plan, support the hiring of management staff, and expand CLiCK’s curbside market. In the 2023 budget, CLiCK was also awarded Community Project funding – which came in addition to my office’s 15 Community Projects – to make infrastructure upgrades to their kitchen.
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| Last month, Rep. Courtney visited food producers at CLiCK Willimantic – jelly and jam producer KD Crop Farms (Chaplin) and Cambera Farm and Bakery (Marlborough) |
Small businesses are a big part of what makes our communities unique and places we’re proud to call home – and that absolutely includes our farmers and other food producers. Every weekend, farmers markets across the second District are beehives of activity. They’re fantastic spots to build pick up fresh food directly from the small businesses who produce it. CLiCK does great work to keep the connections between farmers and local consumers strong. Thank you to CLiCK Executive Director Leigh Duffy, KD Crop Farms, and Cambera Farm and Bakery for updating me on CLiCK’s Willimantic kitchen. I look forward to seeing federal funding benefit CLiCK and their partners in eastern Connecticut.
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| CLiCK Willimantic has recently been awarded two federal grants to expand their efforts to grow the culinary businesses in Willimantic-Windham |
The American Rescue Plan Continues to Support the Arts in Norwich
We passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 to help power our towns through the pandemic recovery, and it’s great to see those resources continuing to support our communities. Last week, Norwich announced the award of $500,000 from their remaining portion of ARPA funding to the Southeastern Connecticut Cultural Coalition (SCCC) to support arts programs in our local schools and throughout the community. This is the second year that the city has voted on a bipartisan basis to provide SCCC with ARPA funding—they did a great job marshaling resources last year to help support all sorts of local concert halls, museums, and other venues, and that work helped them earn bipartisan support in being awarded these new resources.
Glad to know that these sorts of beloved local establishments, as well as important creative arts programs in our schools, will have these ARPA resources available through the SCCC for new challenges they might encounter this year.
Community Project Funding Awarded to Plainfield and Stonington
ICYMI: We secured federal funding for 15 Community Projects in eastern Connecticut. I’ll be making visits in the coming weeks to celebrate these wins for public safety, social services, infrastructure, and more with the towns and community leaders who put in the work to make their projects a reality. Two infrastructure projects I’m very excited about are in Stonington and Plainfield.
The Quinebaug River Trail runs through some of the most beautiful parts of our state. It’s a fantastic way for us to get out and enjoy eastern Connecticut’s natural landscape. With Community Project funding, the town of Plainfield will construct a 1.6 mile paved addition to the trail in the Wauregan section of town – great news for cyclists and walkers. Read more about it and my office’s work with Town Planner Mary Ann Chinatti here in the Norwich Bulletin.
My team and I keep in close touch with fisheries in southeastern Connecticut. A large segment of our commercial fishing fleet operates from Stonington’s fishing dock, and in the 2023, we worked with the town to secure federal funds for major improvements to the dock. This will bring a huge boost to commercial fishing. Read more about the project and our work with Stonington First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough here in the Westerly Sun.
Thanks for taking some time to ready my update. If we can be of any assistance, don't hesitate to give my Norwich office a call at (860) 886-0139. Have a great weekend!
On Monday, I'll be joining the New London Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. I hope to see you there!
Sincerely,
Joe Courtney
Member of Congress
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