Last week, Senator Coons congratulated John Sell for earning the title of Delaware Teacher of the Year. Mr. Sell teaches English at Sussex Tech High School in Georgetown, where he is known for his innovative teaching techniques, such as singing poetry to his students.
As the son and grandson of classroom teachers, Chris is committed to strengthening education in Delaware and supporting our extraordinary teachers like Mr. Sell. He joined the Delaware Teacher of the Year Awards Dinner to share his personal appreciation with all of this year’s finalists, selected from 9,000 Delaware public school teachers to represent each of the state’s 19 school districts.
At the awards dinner, Chris said “Tonight, we honor and appreciate all of our teachers, and we also recognize 19 in particular who have gone above and beyond. As nominees for Delaware’s Teacher of the Year, you have shown exceptional dedication and commitment to your students, as well as the ability to inspire the kind of love learning that lasts a lifetime.”
To read more about Chris’ work on education, click here.
Last night, Senator Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-chair of the Senate Law Enforcement Caucus, received the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s (DCADV) 2012 Vision of Peace Award.
The award was presented at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts in Wilmington during DCADV’s Purple Ribbon Event, hosted annually during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
“When we shine light on these horrific acts by educating the public, empowering the victims, and punishing the offenders, we can help break the cycle of abuse,” Chris said in accepting the Vision of Peace Award.
The Vision of Peace Award is presented by the DCADV to individuals who have demonstrated leadership and sustained commitment in their efforts to end domestic violence. Chris is fighting to advance the reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) and has worked for many years to help prevent domestic violence in Delaware while empowering victims to come forward.
To learn more about Chris’ work on the Judiciary Committee, click here.
Senator Coons attended a Regional Patient Advocacy Leaders Summit hosted by the American Lung Association last week. This summit gave staff, volunteers and leaders in patient advocacy the opportunity to learn about issues on the horizon. The summit also included networking and discussions of new avenues for advocacy.
Senator Coons addressed about 70 regional patient advocates. He talked about the bipartisan Pulmonary Fibrosis Research Enhancement Act of 2011, a bill he introduced to increase the awareness, understanding and research being done to find the root cause – and a cure – for Pulmonary Fibrosis. He also discussed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which has already helped 6,000 young Delawareans get insurance.
For more on Chris’ work on health care, click here.
On Thursday, Senator Coons joined Senator Carper and Congressman Carney at the Delaware Children’s Museum in Wilmington to announce two federal grants awarded to Nemours for a combined total of nearly $6 million to help build healthier communities.
“These grants will serve tens of thousands of Delawareans, helping them live happier, healthier lives,” Chris said. In his remarks, he reiterated the significant impact that these grants will have on preventative care and early intervention, touching upon how it could enact change in areas such as the struggle with obesity and chronic diseases in young children.
For more on Chris’ work on health care, click here.
Senator Coons spoke Wednesday at the first annual New Castle County Economic Development Luncheon. The lunch discussion focused on ways to foster and develop a strong economic and entrepreneurial system in New Castle County and across Delaware.
Chris reiterated his commitment to Delaware startups, noting that new businesses are powerful drivers of job creation and economic recovery. Over a 25 year period between 1980 and 2005, most of the net new jobs in America – about 40 million jobs – were created by firms that were five years old or less.
Since he arrived in the Senate, Chris has used his private sector experience to shape a number of job creating pieces of legislation that support innovative startups and entrepreneurs. He has especially focused on making the Research and Development Tax Credit available to newer businesses, in addition to more established companies.
To read more about Chris’ work supporting job creation and economic competitiveness, click here.
Last week, Senator Coons took part in a launch celebration unveiling the new Horn Program in Entrepreneurship at UD.
Made possible by a generous gift from Charles and Patricia Horn, this program will encourage students to pursue the kind of entrepreneurial ideas that will power Delaware’s economy for years to come.
The Horn program will enhance and expand entrepreneurial studies at UD and be made up of a variety of initiatives like the Venture Development Center, a student business incubator, Hen Hatch, UD’s premier startup funding competition and an annual President’s Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It will also support new curricular offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Chris believes that supporting our innovators and entrepreneurs is critical to our economic recovery.
To read more about his work to create jobs and promote American economic competitiveness, click here.
The American Society of Civil Engineers recently published a new report making clear the economic necessity of investing in our nation’s infrastructure. The report, entitled Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Airports, Inland Waterways, and Marine Ports Infrastructure, highlights the broad economic repercussions of failing to invest in our nation’s trading centers.
The report’s economic findings demonstrate the urgent need for significant investment in our aging infrastructure—for our continued productivity, our economic competitiveness and the affordability of the millions of household goods that traverse our ports. An investment of $15.8 billion is needed by 2020, the report finds, to close the funding gap and accommodate trade growth in our marine ports and inland waterways. The stakes are high. If we fail to close the gap, the report estimates cumulative losses of $697 billion in GDP, $1.3 trillion in business sales, $872 billion in disposable personal income, and $270 billion in exports By 2040, these losses reach into the trillions of dollars.
Senator Coons has been an outspoken advocate for infrastructure investment, co-sponsoring legislation such as the Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for Long-Term Development Act,the Rebuild America Jobs Act and the Harbor Maintenance Act that invest in America’s future while providing high wage, high skill jobs for American workers.
The Port of Wilmington plays a critical role in Delaware’s economy, transporting more than five million tons of goods and generating nearly $30 million in state tax revenue each year. The port’s operations provide jobs for 5,000 Delawareans and planned expansions could create up to 75,000 jobs in the region. The Delaware River Deepening Project, slated for completion in 2017, would dredge the Delaware River from a depth of 40 feet to 45 feet, which will attract larger, more efficient cargo ships and increase Wilmington’s competiveness on the Eastern Seaboard. Chris is committed to ensuring its completion and will keep fighting to make sure the Port of Wilmington has the resources it needs to thrive.
On Monday, Senator Coons spoke with members of the Junior Achievement Titan Challenge. JA’s Titan Challenge is a global online simulation program involving 24 high school students and recent graduates who compete in a virtual economy. The teams of students, coming from China, Russia, Poland, Canada, and the U.S., act as chief executive officers of a virtual manufacturing company as they make business and ethical decisions in an attempt to outperform their competitors.
“JA’s Titan Challenge is about empowering students, allowing them to learn outside the classroom and helping them experience the business world while preparing for their future,” Chris said. “This is a great opportunity for like-minded students and community volunteers from all over the world to compete and learn from one another.”
Junior Achievement is a nonprofit organization and the world’s largest organization that has impacted over 4 million U.S. students with the help of over 178,000 volunteers. JA of Delaware recently received two prestigious awards at the JA National Leadership Conference.
Senator Coons congratulated four Delaware American Legion Auxiliary Boys and Girls Nation leaders Thursday in Washington. The young leaders from the First State are Lael Houston, Rachel Defroda, Donald Wiegner and Christopher Clifton.
“I am always excited to meet our nation’s future leaders, and programs like Boys Nation and Girls Nation are terrific ways for the next generation to learn about our government,” Chris said. “These young men and women will develop essential leadership skills and cultivate strong bonds. This experience puts them on the road to success in their future endeavors.”
Lael Houston, of Dover High School, and Rachel Defroda, of Delaware Military Academy, were the two Delawarean women ‘Senators’ elected out of the 49 Girls State participants. Donald Wiegner, of Delaware Military Academy, and Christopher Clifton, of Sussex Technical High School JROTC, were elected out of 98 Boys State participants.
The week-long immersion program held in the nation’s capital teaches ambitious young men and women about how the federal government works. Two participants per state, known as “Senators,” are chosen from the Boys and Girls State program. The men and women create a mock legislature where they run for office and elect a mock U.S. Boys or Girls Nation President. The students campaign for the passage of bills, participate in Senate sessions, and more. The highlight of the week includes field trips to monuments, meetings with state senators and representatives, and a visit to the White House.
The most important responsibility I have as your senator is to support job creation. Our economy is starting to recover, but there are still far too many Delawareans out of work. That is why we are continuing to host job fairs across the state, connecting job seekers with employers ready to hire, and working to help Delaware businesses access the capital they need to grow and create new jobs.
One of the keys to fueling American economic growth and ensuring we remain competitive in the global economy is putting in place policies that support and sustain innovation. American ingenuity has always been at the core of our economic success. From inventing the light bulb to perfecting the search engine, we have never lacked good ideas. The challenges of the global economy may be new, but America’s advantage – our entrepreneurs and innovators – remains the same. We just have to support their work so they can continue to grow and create jobs.
Over the last few months, I’ve partnered with Republicans and Democrats alike to introduce legislation that will support our most innovative companies – the ones with the highest job-creation potential.
Watching cable news, it would be easy to think the Senate is stuck in partisan gridlock, and to an extent, that is true. Yet there are also decent people of both parties who want to get things done, especially when it comes to our economy. To those of us in Delaware, that is the rule, rather than the exception, but unfortunately, Washington doesn’t always work the same way.
That is why I was so glad to find partners like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas. They are both conservative Republicans, but I’ve worked with them and Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, on a series of job-creation proposals we bundled together in a bill called the Startup Act 2.0.
The Startup Act 2.0 is designed to promote innovation and jumpstart the economy through the creation and growth of new businesses and jobs. It is based on research showing that for almost 30 years, companies less than five years old have created almost all the net new jobs in America – at an average of about three million new jobs a year. So we pulled together ideas that help bring university research from the lab to the marketplace, ideas that encourage investments in new startup companies and more in the hopes of creating an environment where entrepreneurs can succeed.
Our bill contains an array of job-creating measures for small businesses, such as exempting capital gains taxes on investments in startups, which the independent Kauffman Foundation tells us would unlock $7.5 billion of new investment. It also supports innovative small businesses with an expanded research and development tax credit, an idea Senator Rubio and I introduced together last fall as part of our bipartisan AGREE Act and something I will continue fighting to pass because it is critical for Delaware small business.
With the right resources, American products can be manufactured in Delaware and remain competitive in the global marketplace. It is happening every day across our state, at companies of all sizes, including Miller Metal in Bridgeville, a local shop that is going head-to-head with Chinese metal fabricators – and winning.
We have to continue to support this kind of entrepreneurship and innovation in all sectors of our economy, including in the energy sector. There is going to be a clean energy economy in the years ahead, the only question is whether American businesses, families and workers will be at the center or the periphery. If we want to stay competitive in the race for homegrown, affordable, renewable sources of energy, we have to make sure our financial innovation keeps up with our technological innovation.
That is why this spring, I introduced bipartisan legislation to level the playing field and make a tax credit that has long supported oil and gas projects available to renewable energy projects like wind, solar and biofuels. The bill I wrote with Senator Moran, the Master Limited Partnership Parity Act, could bring significant capital off the sidelines to give clean energy innovators and projects the critical private sector support they need to get their product to the marketplace.
The bottom line is that America’s researchers, business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs are already working to help create jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the global economy. We just have to support and sustain their hard work, and we cannot take the rest of the year off just because there’s an election coming up. Even in this difficult, partisan atmosphere, we have to find ways to work together and get things done. Innovation will drive American economic competitiveness for generations to come, and our job is to help our innovators and entrepreneurs do their jobs.
Senator Coons congratulated four Delaware American Legion Auxiliary Boys and Girls Nation leaders Thursday in Washington. The young leaders from the First State are Lael Houston, Rachel Defroda, Donald Wiegner and Christopher Clifton.