Business groups rallied behind a
bipartisan Senate bill to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import
Bank for five years and give Congress more oversight, putting
pressure on House Republicans who want to shut the bank.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable are
among groups urging passage of the Senate measure introduced
yesterday by Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and
Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois.
“Let’s have the Senate act, go out with a big vote, and
then let’s go to work on the House,” John Engler, president of
the Roundtable, a group for chief executives of the largest U.S.
companies, said today at a breakfast with Bloomberg News editors
and reporters in Washington.
Debate on the bill will begin in September when the Senate
returns from a five-week recess, Majority Leader Harry Reid of
Nevada said today, leaving lawmakers about a month before the
bank’s financing authority expires. The 80-year-old agency is
the target of Republicans, including House Financial Services
Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who say it supports large
corporations like Boeing Co. (BA) and General Electric Co. (GE) that don’t
need aid.
The Export-Import Bank provides loan guarantees, loans and
insurance to help foreign companies buy U.S. goods.
“We applaud the Senate introduction today of strong
bipartisan legislation,” Myron Brilliant, executive vice
president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, said yesterday in a statement.
The lender gained support yesterday as some opponents said
they would consider renewing the agency.
House Action
In the House, Republicans led by Stephen Fincher of
Tennessee, who opposed reauthorization in 2012, plan to
introduce a bill that would renew the Ex-Im Bank, while
mandating changes in business practices. Congress, which begins
a recess tomorrow, will be in session for 10 days before the
charter lapses.
“It’s unreasonable to think that the bank is just going to
end Sept. 30,” Fincher, a member of the House Financial
Services Committee that is debating the bank’s renewal, said in
an interview.
Incoming House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California
Republican and member of the financial services panel, made
clear last month he wanted to let the bank’s charter lapse.
Yesterday, he wasn’t so adamant.
Businesses Lobby
Asked in an interview whether he might back a plan to alter
the bank’s business practices, he said, “The best part is,
we’re working through committee. And I’d love to see a bill come
out of the committee.”
The Chamber, the nation’s largest lobbying group for
businesses, is working with the Business Roundtable and the
National Association of Manufacturers for reauthorization.
The Roundtable is going to push “very hard” for the
Senate bill, said Engler, who said he expects a similar measure
to emerge in the House soon. “I think there’s a lot of support
in the House, regardless of McCarthy’s position,” he said.
The Manchin bill is in line with what President Barack Obama said he wants: a five-year reauthorization, with a gradual
increase of its lending limit to $160 billion from $140 billion.
Reid Criticism
“We need to find a way forward on this,” Reid said on the
Senate floor today. The “no-government crowd” of Republicans
mostly in the House were making that difficult. “It would be a
shame if we weren’t able to renew this,” he said.
Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget
Committee who has called for the elimination of a bank he
criticized as “crony capitalism,” yesterday said he would
consider reauthorizing it with changes to its charter.
“Could the thing be reformed? Of course,” Ryan of
Wisconsin said at a media breakfast in Washington hosted by the
Christian Science Monitor. Still, he said, “there are so many
more things we should be dedicating taxpayer resources to than
handing it out to some select companies.”
Speaker John Boehner of Ohio hasn’t said how he’ll vote on
the bank, which provides financing for foreign companies to buy
U.S. goods.
Fincher said he and a number of House Republicans, who he
declined to name, are winnowing a list of about 60 proposed
changes to 20 or 25. The bank would have a five-year
reauthorization and a limit on lending higher than $95 billion
and lower than the current $140 billion. The exact level hasn’t
been determined, he said.
Small Business
Other potential changes being considered are the inclusion
of an independent auditor for aircraft financing, a provision
that would let qualified commercial lenders support small-business lending and changes to the bank’s accounting practices,
Fincher said. He said his group is trying to increase
participation for small businesses in a way that doesn’t squeeze
out the bank’s assistance for larger corporations, such as
Boeing, that receive the bulk of the lender’s financial support.
“As conservative Republicans, we don’t want to
disincentivize growth,” Fincher said. “We think there’s room
for everybody.”
About 89 percent of the Export-Import Bank’s 3,842 deals
during the past fiscal year benefited small businesses,
according the lender’s annual report on $27.3 billion in
financing. Of long-term loan guarantees, 65 percent involved
sales of Boeing aircraft, according to a June 3 report by the
independent Congressional Research Service.
Wind Down
Jeff Emerson, a spokesman for Hensarling on the financial
services committee, said in an e-mail yesterday that the
chairman still wants to let the bank’s authorization expire on
schedule. “That would allow for an orderly wind down of Ex-Im,” he said.
Other conservatives are skeptical of changing the bank.
“The same people who have been talking about reforms for a
while continue to” do so, said Dan Holler, a spokesman for
Heritage Action for America. He said the Washington-based
limited government group continues to oppose the bank’s renewal
in part because it provides unnecessary support for large
corporations.
The Manchin-Kirk measure would require the bank to provide
Congress with reports on its business plan, including its
efforts to support small-business exports, and it limits the
lender’s exposure to loan defaults.
Manchin, from a coal-producing state, plans to introduce an
amendment related to coal, the senators said in a statement. The
Ex-Im Bank last year said it would no longer back financing for
most overseas coal plants out of concern for carbon pollution.
Coal Technology
“All we’re talking about truly is using the best
technology that we have developed and available in the United
States of America to any project of the Ex-Im Bank,” Manchin
said today in an interview. “They are going to build 1,200
coal-fired plants around the world,” and U.S. technology should
be part of those efforts, he said.
Justin Guay, an anti-coal activist with the Sierra Club,
said Manchin’s effort to amend the measure requires an agreement
to consider the amendment then round up enough votes, both of
which are unlikely, Guay said.
Manchin had been discussing a measure that would have
allowed coal-turbine and related technology financing to more
lower-income nations, such as India and Vietnam, and wasn’t
limited to carbon-capture technology, Guay said.
A senator from a state with a large number of Boeing
workers, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, said, “I’m
100 percent for reauthorization for five years.”
“I’m for straight-up reauthorization, and I don’t mind
reforms as long as they don’t gut the program,” Graham said.
“If you could construct a world where nobody had an Ex-Im Bank,
count me in. But our competitor nations all have Ex-Im banks.”
To contact the reporters on this story:
Brian Wingfield in Washington at
bwingfield3@bloomberg.net;
Laura Litvan in Washington at
llitvan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97@bloomberg.net
Steve Geimann
Article source : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-31/business-groups-rally-behind-senate-s-ex-im-legislation.html
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