Click here to view video of Murphy’s remarks.

WASHINGTON – During a U.S. Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the subcommittee, received a commitment from Vice Admiral Dixon R. Smith of the U.S. Navy and Assistant Secretary Of Defense Lucian Niemeyer for Energy, Installations and Environment to work with Murphy to ensure that there will be an adequate supply of affordable housing, transportation, utilities, education, and other public services available in Southeastern Connecticut for Electric Boat (EB) workers and Navy personnel. Electric Boat needs to hire 14,000 employees over the next ten years to meet new demand for development of Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines, and the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for stable production of two submarines a year until 2038.

Murphy also called on the U.S. Navy to send submarine backlog maintenance work to Electric Boat.

“I wanted to just get your thoughts on how the Navy and the Department of Defense can continue to work with us in southeastern Connecticut to solve what is going to be – you know, not a crisis – but a challenge moving forward. Because, as you’re aware, the Navy’s going to start production on Columbia in 2021 and is considering adding a third Virginia class. And so you’re going to have two boats under construction, and each boat is going to have a pre-commissioning crew of about 250. Thus, conservatively, we’re talking about an additional 500 families, not to have mentioned all the junior sailors that are coming in at the same time that EB is ramping up production. So you’re requiring more and more workforce housing,” said Murphy. “I wanted to ask for your commitment to work with us to try to come up with some really good plans to make sure that we have adequate housing for all of the Navy personnel that are going to be on site.”

Smith responded, “Yes, you have our commitment as we move forward to make sure that we are working together to make sure we can help solve what is potentially a housing challenge here in the future.”

Niemeyer responded, “We have the Office of Economic Adjustment that allows us to work with communities and states to look at, collectively, what does an increase in DoD activity, potentially what can we do to mitigate the impacts, to work with the community to see what improvements can be made. And we look forward to using that office to work with you on assessing what potentially can be done in southeastern Connecticut.”

Today, Murphy is spending a “Day in the Life” of students and manufacturers who work with the Eastern CT Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative – a critical program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor-Workforce Innovation Fund in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Labor and the Eastern CT Workforce Investment Board that provides no-cost training to address the hiring needs of Electric Boat and other manufacturers. Murphy will spend the day shadowing Eastern CT Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative trainees, graduates, and applicants to learn firsthand about the different stages of the program, and how he can continue to provide federal support. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Murphy helped secure funding for the manufacturing initiative and has touted the success of the program to U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta various times.

The full text of Murphy’s exchange is below:

MURPHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, all of you. Thank you very much for being here. Admiral Smith, good to see you again.

I wanted to stay on the topic that Senator Collins raised and ask the flip-side of it, coming from the perspective of a state with a private shipyard. I’m very supportive of the efforts to try to make up for this deferred maintenance at our public shipyards, but as we know, that’s a long-term project and even if you stay on schedule, the Navy has projected that there’s going to be a large percentage of maintenance work that just simply won’t be able to be done at the public shipyards. Thus, it brings me to my question.

As you know, we’ve got this workload valley in Connecticut at Electric Boat (EB) as we seek to ramp up to the point at which we’re going to be producing, at many times, two submarines in that yard at any one given time. And, you know, we are very worried about the likelihood of losing some really important skilled workforce during that period of valley. And so we’ve talked previously about maintenance projects like the Boise, and I’m glad that that contract got awarded – to the wrong shipyard, but Virginia does decent work as well.

My question is just this: wouldn’t it be wise to fill this private yard workforce valley now with some backlog maintenance to make sure that that trained workforce is there when we have that ramp up as the Columbia starts to come into view?

SMITH: Thank you, senator, for the question and sir, it’s good to see you again. Obviously, the readiness of our fleet is number one priority, and also, the skill and the talent of our nuclear repair force in both our public yards and our private yards. I know that the Navy is looking now at how – I mean, we look at how to properly balance across our public yards and I know we’re looking at how to potentially use the private yards. And if I may, I’d like to take the remainder of that question for the record and get back to you with more detail.

MURPHY: I’d be happy to do that.

My second question is still focused on Groton and New London, and I’ll bring in Secretary Niemeyer for this one. This is a really good study that was done by the Navy regarding the housing situation in southeastern Connecticut.

And so, I wanted to just get your thoughts on how the Navy and the Department of Defense can continue to work with us in southeastern Connecticut to solve what is going to be – you know, not a crisis – but a challenge moving forward. Because, as you’re aware, the Navy’s going to start production on Columbia in 2021 and is considering adding a third Virginia class. And so you’re going to have two boats under construction, and each boat is going to have a pre-commissioning crew of about 250. Thus, conservatively, we’re talking about an additional 500 families, not to have mentioned all the junior sailors that are coming in at the same time that EB is ramping up production. So you’re requiring more and more workforce housing.

So this report is a good start, but I wanted to ask you about plans to do a broader analysis of the impacts expected over the next few decades on southeastern Connecticut. I wanted to ask for your commitment to work with us to try to come up with some really good plans to make sure that we have adequate housing for all of the Navy personnel that are going to be on site.

I understand, you know, your book is not to make sure that EB has private sector housing, but their ramp up is going to effect the availability of affordable housing for Navy personnel as well.

SMITH: Yes, senator, thank you. Well, given that my nephew works at EB, I’m also interested. But you have my commitment. I was actually on the phone yesterday with the Executive Officer for the base, talking just about housing. So yes, you have our commitment as we move forward to make sure that we are working together to make sure we can help solve what is potentially a housing challenge here in the future.

MURPHY: Secretary Niemeyer?

NIEMEYER: Yup, so what we also have at the OSD level – we have the Office of Economic Adjustment that allows us to work with communities and states to look at, collectively, what does an increase in DoD activity, potentially what can we do to mitigate the impacts, to work with the community to see what improvements can be made. And we look forward to using that office to work with you on assessing what potentially can be done in southeastern Connecticut.

MURPHY: We’re ready. As you know, the state has made unprecedented investments in the sub base and we’re going to do whatever it necessary to make sure that we have what our Navy workforce and our private workforce needs, but doing that in coordination with both of you and others is helpful. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.