Courtney Votes to Advance Bipartisan FY27 NDAA Out of House Armed Services Committee

WASHINGTON, DC - Tonight, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), Ranking Member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, voted to advance the bipartisan Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act out of the House Armed Services Committee.

The committee-passed bill authorizes Courtney's request for full funding for two Virginia-class submarines and one Columbia-class submarine, continued wage improvement funding for submarine shipyard workers, a Courtney-led amendment to put guardrails on President Trump's battleship program that will encroach on previous industrial base capacity, among other priorities secured by Rep. Courtney as Ranking Member of the Seapower Subcommittee.

"Once again, the House Armed Services Committee and the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee worked over the last five months in a bipartisan fashion to craft a national defense bill that delivers for our military and shipbuilders," Courtney said. "At a time of historic growth in submarine production, the FY27 NDAA delivers a critical demand signal and investments in workforce to keep momentum strong. On AUKUS, following the exciting announcements of collaboration between the three nations on undersea unmanned vessels and that UK and U.S. sub rotations in Western Australia remain on track for 2027, this bill makes the needed investments in the Virginia program to deliver on the U.S. commitment to sell Australia three Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s."

"As always, there was not perfect unanimity in this bill. The unvetted, premature funding in this bill for the Trump Administration's new battleship program violates every lesson we've learned on shipbuilding. The program has gone from an AI-generated poster board in Mar-A-Lago in December to an expensive, premature acquisition of steel for a ship that still does not have a design yet," Courtney continued. "I voted for an amendment which would strike that funding, and I had an amendment successfully adopted which aims to prevent the battleships from interfering with existing nuclear-powered shipbuilding plans. In a world with hypersonic missiles that can cover thousands of miles, our Navy does not need lumbering, vulnerable battleships. Battleship funding would be much better served on other agile Navy and Marine Corps platforms, both manned and unmanned, to build a much more effective fleet in today's contested maritime arena. I will continue working to put much need guardrails on the battleship program."

For a fact sheet on Courtney priorities included in the committee-passed FY27 National Defense Authorization Act, click here.

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