
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) this week led a bipartisan group of senators in a letter requesting Senate appropriators fund two Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) in the fiscal year 2025 budget. The letter was addressed to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The senators argue the Navy’s request for only one SSN “sends a terrible message to the submarine industrial base working vigorously to rebuild in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.…