Media Center

“I was honored today to accept the Congressional Leadership Award from the Association of Defense Communities,” said Courtney. “Our region is proud to be the home of so many who serve and have served our nation, as well as their families. So many communities in eastern Connecticut are tied closely with our military, whether sailors and their families stationed at SUBASE New London, shipbuilders working at Electric Boat, employees at small and mid-sized businesses that supply critical defense programs, or countless schools, businesses and organizations that support them. I will continue to support the proud maritime tradition of eastern Connecticut as we contribute to the national defense of the United States.”

“Today I am announcing with personal regret but with warm wishes that my longtime chief of staff, Jason Gross, will be moving on to pursue a new opportunity,” said Courtney. “Jason’s departure will mark the end of an era for my office, as he has been a foundational part of everything I have done here over the past nine years. During his tenure as Chief of Staff, Jason has served this office and the people of eastern Connecticut with dedication and distinction – and he will be missed. I will wish him all the best in his new role serving as Executive Director for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.”

“I applaud the EPA for providing much needed support to school districts across the country and right here in Eastern Connecticut to replace ageing buses that no longer meet our current standards for pollution emissions,” said Courtney. “We know now that exposure to dangerous emissions is particularly harmful to young people and with school budgets tight, this funding will make a huge difference for our local communities.”

“As a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, I served as part of the bipartisan team to help shape and to support the update of this law,” said Congressman Courtney. “The world has changed dramatically since No Child Left Behind was passed, and the needs of our children, our educators, and our workforce have evolved significantly over time.”

“Eastern Connecticut is proud of its deep connection to our Coast Guard and excited to be the home of the planned National Coast Guard Museum in New London – the service’s first major national museum in its history,” said Courtney. “With nationwide fundraising efforts underway to design and build the new museum, I am committed to ensuring that Congress do all it can to support this worthy project. I am proud to have worked with Senator Blumenthal to secure a targeted change to federal law that ensures that the Coast Guard can provide its full support to making the rich treasure of artifacts for oldest maritime fleet available both to the American people and the world. This is a huge boost to national effort to create the long overdue museum, and sends a powerful signal that this effort has strong backing of the Congress, the federal government and the Coast Guard.”

Today, our surface warfare combatant fleet consists of destroyers, cruisers and the littoral combat ship. Due to the truncation or cancellation of recent surface navy recapitalization programs such as DD(X) and CG(X), our Navy is forced to rely on ships that were designed decades ago with different security challenges in mind. As a result, even if we achieve the shipbuilding levels laid out in the Navy’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan, we still face sustained periods of shortfalls in both our small and large surface combatant fleet. That means that we have to ensure that we are doing all we can to not only build up the size of our surface fleet, but also do more with the fleet we have.

“The important highway funding measure guarantees funding for five years, and finally moves us away from repeated short term extensions that continually kicked our national infrastructure needs down the road,” Representative Courtney said. “I strongly supported this funding bill as a first step, but our urgent national needs to rebuild our crumbling system of roads and bridges outstrips even the amount funded in this bill. We must continue to push for an adequately robust funding level that meets our infrastructure needs and provides a catalyst for jobs and economic growth.”