A group of bipartisan lawmakers led by U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, is urging appropriators working to complete the 2017 federal budget to avoid any disruptions in funding for the new fleet of ballistic missile submarines planned for the Navy.

Republican congressional leaders said Thursday they plan to pass a stopgap measure to fund the government through March, once current government funding runs out Dec. 9, to give President-elect Donald Trump and his administration a say in how to spend the remainder of the fiscal 2017 budget. The 2017 fiscal year began Oct. 1.

Congress recessed Thursday and won't return until the week of Nov. 28 to close out the lame-duck session.

Thirty-three lawmakers, led by Courtney, had signed a letter sent Friday afternoon to the chairmen and ranking members of the House Appropriations Committee and the defense subcommittee. The letter asks them to consider an exception, called an "anomaly," so that new funding could be appropriated for the Columbia-class program.

A similar letter was sent to the chair and ranking members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense from a group of Senate lawmakers led by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

The Columbia program will replace the current fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, built in the 1980s and '90s, with a new fleet of 12 Columbia-class submarines. The new fleet will carry 70 percent of the country's active nuclear arsenal.

Electric Boat, which is in Courtney's district, is the prime contractor for the program. EB will build the new fleet of submarines with Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, but construction work will not be evenly split like it is for the Virginia-class program.

Currently, 3,280 employees from both companies are working on the Columbia program; that comprises 2,940 across EB's facilities in New London, Groton and Quonset Point, and 340 at Newport News.

Continuing resolutions usually limit funding to the previous year's levels, and that would have "significant impacts" on the Columbia-class program, the House lawmakers argued in their letter.

"Without an anomaly to address this issue, the program will face delays in design and production that would have ripple effects throughout its extremely tight timeline, disrupt hiring and material orders throughout the industrial base across several states, and undermine the progress made to date in reducing costs and schedule in this program," the House lawmakers' letter says.

The 2017 fiscal year is the first year that procurement funds for Columbia-class submarines appear in the Navy's budget and as such is considered a new project, which generally are not allowed under continuing resolutions.

"The program is poised to enter into its critical next phase of detailed design and early production early next year that will lay the ground work for success in the years ahead," the House lawmakers' letter says.

The Navy asked for $773.1 million for detailed design and other advanced procurement requirements, and $1.091 billion in research and development funding to be included in the 2017 fiscal year budget for the program.

Courtney pointed to a visit to Electric Boat in June by Republican Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey and Mike Simpson of Idaho as a good sign that an exception could be made for the program. Frelinghuysen is the chairman of the defense subcommittee and Simpson is a member of the appropriations committee.

"They're pretty important members in terms of these kinds of anomalies," Courtney said.

The Navy hopes to buy the first Columbia-class boat in 2021. The first boat is estimated to cost $14.5 billion in 2015 dollars. That includes $5.7 billion in detailed design and nonrecurring engineering costs for the entire class of submarines.

Steel for the hull plate of that first boat was cut in August, several missile tubes are under construction and material orders are in place with over 320 suppliers, the House lawmakers' letter says.

The most recent estimate for the entire Columbia-class program is $97 billion. The Navy estimates the cost of boats two through 12 to be about $5.2 billion each in 2010 dollars, but is working reduce the cost to $4.9 billion each.

j.bergman@theday.com