WASHINGTON (AP) – A $460 billion defense spending plan that could have major ramifications for Connecticut’s submarine industry passed overwhelmingly early Sunday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The appropriations bill, approved on a 393-13 vote, includes $588 million to speed up production of Virginia-class nuclear submarines from one annually to two per year.

Groton-based Electric Boat, which also has facilities in Rhode Island, shares construction of the submarines with Northrop Grumman Newport News in Norfolk, Va.

State and regional leaders have said an accelerated construction schedule would be a boon to the industry and southeastern Connecticut, where Electric Boat has struggled to retain jobs and avoid further layoffs.

“This is a breakthrough step that has not occurred in the past, despite all the noise that surrounds this issue,” U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said Sunday about the House vote. “There’s dollars matching up with policies for the first time.”

Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman Newport News build one $2.5 billion Virginia-class submarine each year.

Courtney said that schedule is too slow to replace the nation’s aging nuclear submarine fleet, a concern that has taken on new urgency because of homeland security issues.

“At the end of the day, that’s the argument that I think really punched it through this year,” he said. “There’s a worry that we’re going to have a fleet that’s going to fall below what the Navy identified as a minimum size needed to meet its mission requirements.”

The Senate is expected to take up the bill in September. A similar proposal failed last year, but Courtney said he believes some powerful senators are now convinced of the proposal’s merits.

The recently commissioned USS Hawaii was the third in a group of 10 Virginia-class subs being built jointly by Electric Boat and the Northrop Grumman shipyard. The USS Virginia was commissioned in 2004, and the USS Texas was commissioned in 2006.

Officials say the class, with boats longer and lighter than previous Seawolf-class submarines, could eventually have about 30 submarines.

About 7,500 people work at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, while about 2,000 are employed at the company’s Quonset Point facility in Rhode Island. People whose jobs depend on the health of the local submarine industry cheered the House vote on Sunday.

“With two ships per year, the employment level could be stabilized and the skills and knowledge of submarine construction preserved,” Ken Delacruz, president of the Metal Trades Council AFL-CIO labor group, said in a written statement Sunday.