Our next job fair: May 31st in Dover

Senator Coons is teaming up with Senator Carper and Congressman Carney to host a second Delaware job fair — this one on May 31st on the Dover campus of Delaware Technical and Community College.

(We had originally said this job fair would be on June 1, but we had to change the date to make it work.)

We’ve begun recruiting employers to come to the job fair to meet with Delawareans looking for work, but this time we’re widening the call in hopes that more employers reach out to us instead.

“There is still room at the job fair for more employers in the region looking to hire capable, energetic Delawareans,” Senator Coons said in a statement announcing the fair. “Businesses that have openings and would like to participate in the job fair should contact my office to reserve their spot. We’re committed to doing everything we can to help Delawareans get back to work.”

Chris hosted a job fair in Wilmington in April that drew more than 2,200 people looking for work. 

Businesses looking to hire at the job fair should contact Latisha Bracy in Senator Coons’ office at 302-573-6345. Delawareans interested in attending should call 302-573-6345 or email workshop@coons.senate.gov for more information or to pre-register.

Florida’s high-speed rail funds come to Delaware

When Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, announced that his state was declining its share of federal high-speed rail funds, Delaware’s Congressional delegation got to work on putting it to use in Delaware. Today the Department of Transportation announced that $800 million of the $2.02 billion available would be invested in Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

“When Governor Scott declined to accept his state’s share of these federal funds, we said we wanted to make Florida’s loss Delaware’s gain, and that’s exactly what we did, “ Senator Coons said. “The Department of Transportation made the right call in allocating the largest share of Florida’s unused high-speed rail funds to the Northeast Corridor. When we met with Secretary LaHood in March, I underscored the value of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor as a critical artery for not only Delaware’s economy, but for the country’s. It made sense to invest that money where it could do the most good, and there is no doubt that the Northeast Corridor was that place.”

The Senator’s week ahead schedule: May 9 to May 15

Monday, May 9 at 8:30 a.m. – Senator Coons will visit MOT Charter School. 1156 Levels Road, Middletown, DE – Closed to press.

Monday, May 9 at 10:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Dover Air Force Base Milcon Ground Breaking Ceremony for the Chapel Center – Dover Air Force Base, Dover, DE – Open to Press.

Monday, May 9 at 4:00 p.m. – The Senator will preside over the Senate. Washington, DC – Open to press who wish to sit in the Senate gallery.

Tuesday, May 10 at 10:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanistan. Witnesses will be: Dr. David Kilcullen, President & Chief Executive Officer of Caerus Associates; Dr. Seth Jones, Senior Political Scientist and RAND Corporation; Dr. Stephen Biddle, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. 419 Senate Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press.

Tuesday, May 10 at 11:00 a.m. – The Senator will speak at the Health Management Academy Seminar. Senator Coons will discuss the need for ensuring patients get the best care possible as we work to lower health care costs. Sofitel Hotel, 806 15th Street NW, Washington, DC

Thursday, May 12 at 9:30 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on carbon capture and sequestration legislation. 366 Senate Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press. 

Friday, May 13 at 9:30 a.m. – The Senator will preside over the Senate. Washington, DC – Open to press who wish to sit in the Senate gallery.

Saturday, May 14 at 9:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend the Delaware State Homebuyers Association’s Homebuyers Fair. Christiana Hilton, 100 Continental Drive, Newark, DE – Open to press.

Saturday, May 14 at 12:00 p.m. – The Senator will attend the Delaware Fatherhood and Family Coalition Event with Reverend Sheldon Nix, Ph.D.  Delaware Tech Conference Center, 400 Stanton-Christiana Rd., Newark, DE – Open to press.

Saturday, May 14 at 2:00 p.m. – The Senator will attend the promotion ceremony of Col. Carol Timmons to Brigadier General in the Delaware Air National Guard. Col. Timmons will be the first federally recognized female to be promoted to Brigadier General in the Delaware Air National Guard. New Castle Air Base, New Castle, DE – Open to press.

Sunday, May 15 at 9:30 a.m. – The Senator will attend the kick-off rally for the Jewish Federation of Delaware’s Mitzvah Day. Bernard and Ruth Siegel Jewish Community Center, 101 Garden of Eden Road, Wilmington, DE – Open to press.

Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware… Right here at Johnson Controls

MIDDLETOWN — Senator Coons attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a 400,000 square foot distribution center at Johnson Controls in Middletown. Johnson Controls is the world’s largest supplier of automotive batteries. 

Chris put on his hard hat and participated in the groundbreaking ceremony. The company is investing $60 million in the facility, which will perform the charging, packaging and distribution of automotive batteries for the Northeast region of the United States. This facility will have a capacity of 8.5 million units per year.

“It’s businesses like Johnson Controls that are reinforcing the mantra, ‘Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware. Job retention and job creation are key to our economic recovery, and this groundbreaking is a shot in the arm for Middletown and all of Delaware,” Chris said.

Chris also recognized Johnson Controls’ commitment to the First State through its investment in the community. The company currently has about 280 people working in Middletown. The new facility will create 67 new jobs.

Senator Chris Coons discussed the expansion of Johnson Controls with Middletown Plant Manager Rick Thompson. Johnson Controls currently has about 280 people working in Middletown.  The new facility will create 67 new jobs.

Video: Senator Coons at ONE forum on global poverty

Back in April, Senator Coons participated in a forum on global poverty hosted by the ONE Campaign at the University of Delaware. Below is a video produced by ONE at the event.

Chris tours UPS facility in Newark

NEWARK — Senator Coons greeted workers at the UPS sorting facility in Newark this morning, getting a first-hand look at how packages from all over the world get to homes and businesses across the First State. This facility processes about 15 million items each year—and they do it all with about 400 employees and state-of-the-art technology.

UPS prides itself on being one of the most advanced logistics companies in the world, and also for its ability to quantify the safety and productivity of each employee.  Chris was impressed to learn that UPS can track a truck’s idle time, speed and the route of every driver.  They can even tell how long it takes before a driver puts on his or her seatbelt. Today, Chris helped hand out awards to those employees meeting safety goals.

Many employees are veterans at the Newark facility.  UPS enjoys recruiting from the military because of the similarities in work ethic.  Today, Chris was honored to meet UPS employee Master Sgt. Joe Leighton (in photo above) who is also in the Delaware National Guard.  Master Sgt. Leighton is gearing up to deploy to Afghanistan later this month.  

In op-ed, Chris expresses frustration with slow patent processing

In an op-ed appearing on HuffingtonPost.com today, Senator Coons reports on the Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to call off a program scheduled to begin this week that would have sped up the devastatingly slow speed patents are processed in the United States.

“The pace of American innovation far exceeds the pace of American bureaucracy,” Senator Coons wrote in an op-ed on Huffington Post today. “If you were looking for ways to limit economic recovery, stifling PTO’s ability to grant patents would be pretty high on the list. Fee diversion is effectively a tax on innovation, punishing the very people we ought to be empowering.”

The root of the problem is a little confusing, but here it goes.

Similar to the Postal Service, the Patent and Trademark Office is funded by the fees it collects. But its budget comes from Congress, so every year, PTO has to ask Congress for a budget that matches what it thinks it will collect in fees. It’s a guess.

If it actually collects less in fees than projected, it would have to spend less than what was budgeted. But if it collects more than what was projected, they have to turn that money over to the Treasury… instead of using that money to hire more patent examiners to clear through the massive backlog of 700,000 patent applications stuck at PTO. 

The backlog is so big that if you filed a patent application today, an examiner wouldn’t even see it for two years and you wouldn’t receive a decision for three. Three years! Studies have shown a single patent can create between three and 10 jobs. In this fledgling economic recovery, this is a HUGE problem.

The big-picture fix is the America Invents Act, which Chris cosponsored and which passed the Senate overwhelmingly in March. It cleared the House Judiciary Committee last month but a vote on it hasn’t been scheduled yet. That needs to happen quickly.

PTO came up with its own short-term fix — a clever pilot program that Congress approved that would allow up to 10,000 businesses and individuals who needed their patent in a hurry to pay a significant extra fee that would allow PTO to staff-up appropriately. It wouldn’t slow down patent-processing on the normal track, just create a separate track for expedited consideration.

So PTO projected it would take in $40 million for the pilot program and included that in its budget request for FY11 since if that money wasn’t approved by Congress, it wouldn’t be able to spend it on staffing up. Then came the showdown on spending cuts and the near-shutdown. The deal authorized PTO at its FY11 level — not enough to allow the pilot program to proceed.

Last week, PTO had to abandon the program.

America needs the jobs these patents would create, so now it needs the House of Representatives to pass H.R. 1429. As Chris wrote, “Congress’ delay in ending patent-fee diversion is costing America jobs at a time when we desperately need to be getting more Americans back to work. We need to move more good ideas from the PTO’s inbox to the marketplace.”

The Senate should move faster on judicial nominations

Asked to chair this afternoon’s Judiciary Committee hearing on five nominees to the federal bench, Senator Coons took the opportunity to urge his colleagues to move more quickly on judicial confirmations.

“I am disheartened that the Senate stands poised to spend 30 hours over the coming days engaged in protracted, post-cloture ‘debate’ regarding the nomination of one U.S. District Court judge,” Senator Coons said. “To have to file cloture on a district court nominee who has the unanimous support of his home state senators is nearly unprecedented.”

At issue was the nomination of John McConnell of Rhode Island, whose confirmation today was slowed by a cloture vote and the accompanying 30-hour period for debate. (Several hours after the debate period began, Republicans conceded back the time and allowed the confirmation vote to proceed early this evening.)

There are 93 vacancies on the federal bench, of which 37 are considered “judicial emergencies” because they have been open for more than 18 months, forcing other judges on those courts to shoulder an overly burdensome caseload.

“Today, Attorney General Holder testified before this very committee that the number of vacancies has created a crisis in our courts,” Chris said in his opening statement. “This is not a partisan issue – Chief Justice Roberts has similarly noted that the vacancies are causing acute difficulties for some judicial districts.” 

Download an MP3 audio file of Chris’ opening statement here.

Chris meets with pair of outstanding young Delawareans

Chris met with two outstanding Delaware students in his Washington office Tuesday to thank them for their service to the community and to congratulate them on being recognized with 2011 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards.

Cab Calloway School of the Arts sixth-grader Genevieve Spence (above at left) and Charter School of Wilmington senior Jon Austin Osborne (above at right) were among 102 young people from across the nation to receive the award.

“It was a true honor to meet with these outstanding young people,” Chris said after meeting Genevieve and Jon. “I was impressed to learn about their humanitarian efforts and their deep commitment to serving their communities. They are true role models for their peers and I offered them my sincerest congratulations.”

Jon co-founded the student-run Humanitarian League of Delaware to encourage young people to participate in humanitarian activities and now has 80 students involved in both local and international volunteer projects. Members of the organization, including Osborne, have traveled to Haiti to organize a children’s summer camp, assist with food distribution and to help at a clinic.

Genevieve, after learning about the benefits of mental and physical exercises for Alzheimer’s patients, came up with the idea of donating Wii video game systems to local nursing homes. She raised money by making and selling friendship bracelets, holding a garage sale and soliciting a donation from Best Buy. She has also spent time visiting with and playing with the residents. 

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards is the United States’ largest youth recognition program based exclusively on volunteer community service. The awards were created in 1995 by Prudential in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals to honor middle and high school students at the local, state and national level for outstanding service to others.

Video: Chris salutes U.S. forces for their service since 9/11

Senator Coons spoke on the Senate floor on Monday to praise U.S. forces’ service since the terror attacks of 9/11. Read the transcript here or watch the video below.