Senator Coons and 41 of his colleagues wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to call for an extension of unemployment insurance for millions of out-of-work Americans. You can read the letter below:
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.
NEWARK – To help Delawareans find work during the holiday season, Senators Chris Coons, Tom Carper and U.S. Representative John Carney will host a job fair at the Christiana Mall in Newark on Wednesday, October 17.
Retail and department stores looking to hire seasonal employees will be on hand to interview talented job seekers. Delawareans are encouraged to come dressed to impress and with resumes in hand.
The holiday job fair will take place at the courts in front of JCPenney and Target located in the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware, on October 17th from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m.
“As winter approaches, many retailers in the Christiana Mall will be searching for talented seasonal workers to help during the busy holiday season,” Senator Coons said. “I encourage job-seeking Delawareans to join us at our holiday job fair with their resumes in hand to connect with stores that are ready to hire.”
The Congressional delegation has hosted eight job fairs in Delaware, including two for veterans, in the past two years.
For more information on how to participate as an employer or job seeker, please call Senator Coons’ office at 302-573-6345, or email workshop@coons.senate.gov. Pre-registration is not required.
U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Energy Committee, expressed strong support on Thursday for President Obama’s plan to speed up investments in America’s industrial energy efficiency, including combined heat and power. The Executive Order will enhance American manufacturing competitiveness and create jobs, while also improving our nation’s energy system and reducing harmful emissions.
“Continuing to develop our industrial energy efficiency standards will better ensure American manufacturing remains competitive in today’s international market,” Senator Coons said. “Our manufacturing sector is the backbone of our economy, and it’s imperative that we do all we can to help our businesses succeed and create jobs. President Obama’s proposal is an investment in our economy, our environment, and our energy security. I applaud President Obama for this Executive Order and look forward to continuing to advocate for the development of clean, safe, reliable energy sources.”
The Executive Order will:
Investments in industrial energy efficiency, including combined heat and power, offer significant benefits to manufacturers, utilities and communities across the country, including: Improving U.S. manufacturing competitiveness; creating jobs now through investments upgrading our manufacturing facilities; offering a low-cost approach to new electricity generation capacity to meet current and future demand; significantly lowering emissions; and enhancing grid security.
For more details on the President’s plan, click here.
To learn more about Senator Coons’ work towards clean, sustainable energy, click here.
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MILFORD – Senator Coons visited the Dentsply Caulk plant in Milford on Tuesday to hear about how the company has kept growing over its 135 years in business. The company is a division of Dentsply International, the world’s largest professional dental products manufacturer.
In 2008, thanks in part to the Delaware Economic Development Office, Dentsply underwent an $8.3 million expansion to accommodate pharmaceutical and infection control manufacturing processes, and added 14-thousand square feet of processing spaces. In 2001, they spent $11 million to modernize the plant. The Milford facility also went through significant expansions in the 1990s and 1980s.
“Dentsply Caulk has become a leader in the professional dental product industry and serves as an example of how hard work, innovation and investment in the community can propel a company forward,” Chris said. “Their team has made huge strides since coming to Delaware and is improving dental equipment and products to better serve doctors and patients around the globe.”
Chris spent much of his visit learning about the low volume/high value products that Dentsply manufactures. He also learned much more about the different manufacturing techniques and unique materials used by Dentsply.
Dentsply International has facilities in 22 nations on six continents, manufacturing and distributing products in 120 countries under well-known industry brand names. Dentsply Caulk has made recent break through innovations in composite resins, for instance Prime & Bond® NT™ single component bonding agent, Aquasil Ultra Smart Wetting® impression materials and Esthet•X® HD Micro Matrix Restorative.
Dentsply Caulk has three sites in Milford, totaling over 325k sq. ft., with more than 400 associates.
MILFORD — Senator Coons toured Baltimore Aircoil Company in Milford on Tuesday. Chris, a member of the Senate Energy Committee and a member of the Senate Manufacturing Caucus, learned how this 70-plus year old company makes large commercial-size heating and cooling units like cooling towers, closed circuit cooling towers, evaporative cooling or ice thermal storage for commercial and industrial buildings.
Chris was also very interested in a new product the company has developed that is extremely water efficient and perfect for arid climates like in Africa and the American Southwest.
“I was impressed to get a first-hand look at how Baltimore Aircoil Milford is working hard to make a quality product while keeping an eye toward energy conservation,” Chris said. “Baltimore Aircoil’s Milford plant has grown significantly since it was first built in 1974 — this is a testament to its quality workforce and product and to its investment in the surrounding community.”
In the past decade, domestic export sales for Baltimore Aircoil Milford have quadrupled. The facility spans 180,000 square feet and currently employs just over 400 people. Manufacturing capabilities include sheet metal fabrication, coil fabrication, thermoforming, powder coating and assembly. The Milford facility used 18.3 million pounds of steel and 3,000 miles of PVC last year.
Baltimore Aircoil has offices and facilities around the world, and the Milford facility is one of their largest production centers.
You can read more about the visit here in the Milford Beacon.
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.
U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) took to the Senate floor on July 25, 2012 to urge his Senate colleagues to stand together to vote for a tax proposal that will help create fairness in our nation's tax code by extending the so-called "Bush tax cuts" and other tax breaks for the middle class and low-income families, while allowing income tax, dividend, and capital gains rates to rise on earnings greater than $250,000.
U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday morning to urge his Senate colleagues to stand together to help U.S. companies “insource” jobs by passing the Bring Jobs Home Act. The legislation, which Senator Coons is an original cosponsor of, ends taxpayer subsidies to companies that ship jobs overseas and incentivizes companies to bring jobs back to the United States. The bill is expected to be voted on by the full Senate on Thursday.