[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 16, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6666-S6668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REAUTHORIZATION OF THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to speak today on another topic, 
and that is the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. Senator 
Cantwell is going to be here shortly, and I thank her for her strong 
leadership. We will also be hearing at some point from Senator 
McCaskill and Senator Heitkamp. This has been a bipartisan effort. I 
thank the other Senators who have joined in this fight--Senator Graham 
and Senator Kirk.
  The reason I am here today is to say that America needs to be a 
country that exports, a country that thinks, that invents, that builds 
things, and that exports to the world. When 95 percent of the world's 
customers live outside of our borders, there is literally a world of 
opportunity out there for U.S. businesses. We simply can't afford to 
pass this up.
  We know there are about 85 credit export agencies in over 60 other 
countries. So all of these other countries, over 60 countries--major 
developed nations--have an Ex-Im type bank. Our businesses in the 
United States are competing against companies in those countries, so 
when they are bidding against each other for a contract, the companies 
in the other countries can say: Well, I may not be a huge business, I 
am a small business, but I know I can get financing from my country's 
bank--whether they are in Germany or whether they are in China.
  Do you know what our companies have to say right now? Well, the Ex-Im 
Bank's charter has lapsed. We can't get financing.
  And if you don't think their competitors know this--their competitors 
know it. We have already heard that they have lost contracts because of 
this shortsightedness of letting the Ex-Im Bank lapse. So they are 
competing against these foreign businesses that are backed by other 
countries' credit export programs, and they often also receive 
government subsidies. So why, I ask, would we want to make it harder 
for our own companies to compete across the globe and create jobs right 
here at home?
  In 2014, the Ex-Im Bank provided support for $27 billion worth of 
U.S. exports. That sounds like a lot, but in the same year--are you 
ready for this?--China financed more than double that amount, $58 
billion. So their Ex-Im type bank financed $58 billion, ours only did 
$27 billion, and now we are not doing anything. South Korea and Germany 
have already provided more support for their exports than we have in 
the United States of America.
  So if we don't get this done and reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank, 
countries like China are going to eat our lunch. That is why I am 
urging my colleagues to include the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank 
in the spending bills we must pass to keep the government open and 
running. If we want to level the playing field for our businesses, we 
need to have the U.S. Ex-Im Bank open and running too. This is about 
jobs.
  In June I led a meeting of the Steering and Outreach Committee on the 
importance of the Ex-Im Bank. Several of my colleagues were at that 
meeting, too, and I will tell you what we heard. We heard from small 
business owners from all over the country. They did not mince words. 
Frankly, they were furious and frustrated after watching some Members 
of Congress throw up roadblock after roadblock and refuse to do the 
commonsense thing--reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. These small business 
owners, like the many small business owners I have met in my State, 
told me the Ex-Im Bank is essential for their ability to export. Many 
of these smaller businesses don't have an expert on every country in 
the world. They rely on the Ex-Im Bank to help them with that 
expertise, to get the financing. And what do they get now? This is what 
they get. This is what is on the Web site right now of the Ex-Im Bank:

       Due to a lapse in EXIM Bank's authority, as of July 1, 
     2015, the Bank is unable to process applications or engage in 
     new business or other activities. For more information, 
     please click here.

  Then you click here, and it says:

       To Customers and Stakeholders of the Export-Import Bank of 
     the United States:--

  This is the United States of America. It says--

       Due to a lapse in our authority, as of midnight on June 
     30th the Export-Import Bank of the United States ceased 
     processing new applications or engaging in new business.
       Last week, Congress adjourned for their August recess 
     without reauthorizing EXIM. Both the Senate and the House of 
     Representatives return to Washington on September 8th. This 
     means that EXIM will focus on the management of our $107 
     billion portfolio . . .

  But they cannot do anything new.
  Guess who else is reading that. Our foreign competitors, companies 
and countries all over the world. They are able to show the people for 
whom they are bidding: Look what happens when you go to the Ex-Im type 
financing site in the United States. Guess what it says. It says: 
Sorry, we are lapsed; we can't do anything.
  That is what these companies from other countries are seeing.
  We heard from Boyle Energy Services in New Hampshire, Air Tractor in 
Texas, the Orbital Sciences Corporation in Virginia, and FirmGreen in 
California. Most were headed up by Republican CEOs. They all said the 
same thing--that Ex-Im Bank has been critical in building their 
businesses and supporting their ability to export all over the world. 
Many of them told us they would lose business, not be able to enter 
into contracts, and may even have to lay off workers if they lose the 
support of the Ex-Im Bank. And now it is not just the possibility of 
having to lay off workers; that is actually happening in our country 
due to this problem with the Ex-Im Bank.
  At the end of June when the Ex-Im Bank expired, there were nearly 200 
transactions totaling over $9 billion in financing pending. Letting the 
Ex-Im Bank's charter lapse meant lost contracts and layoffs. It means 
European and Chinese workers will be doing the jobs Americans are now 
doing.
  My colleagues, I don't think we can wait any longer. I will put in 
the Record the evidence from my own State and what it has meant in my 
own State.
  Every year I visit all 87 counties in Minnesota and I meet with all 
kinds of small business owners. One thing that I find over and over is 
that these small businesses are exporting and many are using the Ex-Im 
Bank to provide them with the expertise they need to enter new markets 
all over the world and the vital loans, loan guarantees or credit 
insurance they need to access these markets.
  The list of Minnesota companies that have told me of their strong 
support for the Ex-Im Bank is long. Let me share a few examples.
  I have met with the people at Balzer--an agricultural equipment 
manufacturer based in Mountain Lake--a town of 2,000. They told me that 
they have grown their exports to about 15 percent of total sales with 
the help of the Ex-Im Bank. They export from Canada to Kazakhstan--from 
Japan to Australia--and now South Africa too.
  With the help of the Ex-Im Bank, Superior Industries in Morris has 
been able to export to Canada, Australia, Russia, Argentina, Chile, 
Uruguay, and Brazil.
  I have heard from the Trade Acceptance Group in Edina which provides 
credit insurance to businesses that export. They rely on the Ex-Im 
Bank. I heard from Fastenal and Miller Ingenuity, both from Winona. 
They told me how the Ex-Im Bank helped them reach new markets in 
Mexico, Indonesia, and Africa. And the list goes on.
  The Ex-Im Bank was helping these small businesses from all over 
Minnesota and all over the country compete and export globally. These 
are success stories and we need more of them. There are success stories 
like this in every State. And these are the stories we want to hear--
not stories about losing jobs and business opportunities to Europe and 
China.
  I have given speeches on this before. We cannot wait any longer. We 
need to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank now.
  I will end with this, as I see Senator Cantwell, our great leader on 
this, is in the Chamber. The Ex-Im Bank has been reauthorized 16 times 
in its 81-year history, every time with broad bipartisan majorities, 
and Ex-Im has the support this year. The Senate has voted twice with 
bipartisan support to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank, and over 250 House 
Members have cosponsored bills supporting the Ex-Im Bank.

[[Page S6667]]

  The time is here. It is time to stop playing procedural games, get 
this reauthorized so our great U.S. companies no longer have to go to a 
Web site that says: Due to a lapse of authority, the Export-Import Bank 
of the United States is unable to process applications or engage in new 
business.
  We are all about new business in this country. That is what we have 
always been all about. So it is time to change that Web site, and we do 
it by reauthorizing Ex-Im.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for 
her work and her leadership position in the Senate and for focusing on 
economic policy and constantly doing the research and legwork on how 
our economy is moving forward and what key essentials we need to move 
forward. The fact that she is here this morning to speak about the 
Export-Import Bank and the fact that the lapse of the Bank itself is 
causing us great economic challenge--I certainly very much appreciate 
everything she is doing. She comes from a State that has businesses 
that are exporters. Minnesota has a lot of exporters, so she knows this 
is causing a big challenge.
  I know my colleague Senator Heitkamp, who is an original sponsor of 
this legislation, is speaking out on this issue as well. I think 
Senator McCaskill may be joining us this morning.
  I don't know if the American people know, but many of our colleagues 
know that the Export-Import Bank is tooled to help U.S. manufacturers 
export products overseas by financing the deals--not really financing 
them so much as basically helping private banks finance them when the 
banks won't take all the risk. The program works just like the SBA--the 
Small Business Administration--does to help small businesses with bank 
financing. This helps businesses that are trying to export their 
products overseas get financing where these developing countries may 
not have banks to do that. So it has expired, which means it is cutting 
off economic opportunity here in the United States to grow jobs.
  When we think about it, with 90 percent of consumers living outside 
of the United States, the biggest economic opportunity for our country 
is to sell those consumers products that the United States of America 
makes. But we have to have financing for developing countries.
  There are 478 Ex-Im Bank guarantees and credit insurance policies 
worth $3.2 billion set to expire October 1. If we don't quickly 
reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, that money will be lost. And those 
are programs that are already underway. As this shows, there are 116 
pending deals--deals we could do, deals we could get approved. That 
would be basically $9.3 billion in revenue to those companies, and 
obviously companies could grow their economic bottom line.
  In my visits with companies in the State of Washington, I have seen 
that a lot of businesses are looking at maybe 20 percent of their 
revenues coming from overseas markets, so having the Ex-Im Bank helps 
them reach new market opportunities. Every time I talk to them--what 
happens if this program goes away and you can't get financing? Most of 
them will say: That 20 percent of our business will result in layoffs--
those people who are associated with that business.
  So right now what we need to do is to help these businesses that are 
in their fourth quarter have the certainty and guarantee that we are 
going to compete on the playing field of what is called a global 
economy. If you are not interested in that, if you think we are just 
going to make U.S. products and sell them to U.S. people, I guess that 
could be your strategy. I think it is a wrongheaded strategy.
  So we are here today to talk about how this is impacting small 
businesses, big businesses, and what we need to do to get this 
reauthorized.
  Why are we here this morning? Because yesterday we heard news from a 
major manufacturer that basically talked specifically about what is 
going to happen. It is not that the Koch brothers are going to win or 
the Heritage Foundation is going to win; it is that companies such as 
GE and others are going to ship their jobs overseas so they can get 
financing for the manufactured products they make. So what happened? GE 
basically has said it has been forced to move 500 jobs from the U.S. to 
France, China, and Hungary. Why? Why are they moving jobs overseas? 
Because they still have a credit agency. France has one and is willing 
to provide export financing as a major component of wind turbines that 
would otherwise have been built in the United States. Altogether, GE 
has $11 billion in contracts that require export credit agency support. 
So they are going to meet customer demand.
  I worked in business for 5 years. I know what it is like to build and 
ship a product to meet customer demand. They cannot sit around and wait 
for Congress to stop catering to special interests to get their 
customer applications filled. They either do it or they lose business. 
And that is what is happening today--the American economy is losing 
business because people here are playing politics with an important 
tool that helps U.S. manufacturers.
  GE isn't the only one. Boeing is also facing job loss. On July 31, 
Boeing announced that it had lost a contract for communications 
satellite ABS-8, which will provide service to millions of people in 
the Asia-Pacific region. We know this is important business, satellite 
communication. Think about the developing world in places such as the 
Pacific islands, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Papua New 
Guinea. This company specifically cited Ex-Im's lapse as the reason 
they did something else besides going with a U.S. manufacturer. These 
satellites will still be launched. There will be massive growth in the 
middle class of Asia that demands it, and they will continue to get a 
product. It just won't be from a U.S. manufacturer. Why? Because we 
have chosen to let the Export-Import Bank fail.
  All in all, this Export-Import Bank is on track to support 58,000 
fewer jobs in 2015--jobs that, if they were able to operate, they would 
be able to continue. So the fact is that Boeing and GE may be hurting, 
but they will come up with strategies that work well for them because 
that is what you do when you are a big company--you figure out how to 
compete. But the small businesses in America that might be the job 
engine of growth for the future are not so easily able to move their 
company or move overseas to get the financing. For example, since 2007 
Export-Import Bank has supported more than 230 business exporters in 
the State of Washington. Two thirds of those are small businesses. So 
these companies aren't going to be able to all of a sudden stop what 
they are doing, go to France or go to another country, and start a 
manufacturing facility just to get credit agency support. The damage 
that is being done to small businesses in America right now is acute, 
and we need to make sure we get this export agency reauthorized.
  An example of this: My colleague Senator Merkley and I visited Bob's 
Red Mill. I think that about everybody in America, if they don't know 
Bob's Red Mill, knows they have bought a product from Bob's Red Mill 
when they have gone and bought oatmeal or grains. It has grown their 
export revenue about 35 percent since they started working with the 
Export-Import Bank in 2012. Think about that: Those consumers--90 
percent outside of the United States--want to basically consume more 
products like Bob's Red Mill, a great product. I personally think these 
are the kinds of things the United States ought to be focusing on. We 
are still number one in agriculture. We still should be focused on 
shipping agriculture products to developing markets around the world. 
This is one of the biggest and easiest opportunities, feeding the world 
with a product like Bob's Red Mill. But no, no, no. Bob's Red Mill will 
lose business because they will not have an export authority. I doubt 
that Bob at his age--a great man, a very vibrant guy at 80-some years 
old--is going to start a business somewhere else in Europe or in Africa 
just to export to that market and try to get the financing.
  Texas-based Air Tractor will lose up to 25 percent of their sales 
because the Export-Import Bank is stopping. Pennsylvania-based 
Precision Custom Components, which manufactures parts for the nuclear 
industry, says it has over 100 jobs linked to their ability to service 
people with export-import financing.

[[Page S6668]]

  This is a loss of real jobs. When people talk about what we are 
dealing with in our fiscal crisis--the fact that people are talking 
about shutting down Government--to me, if you want to be a good fiscal 
steward, then reinstitute the Export-Import Bank.
  In 2014 alone, Export-Import Bank paid $675 million into our 
Treasury. That is deficit reduction. In fact, in the previous 5 years, 
it had generated somewhere around $5 billion in deficit reduction. Not 
only are we taking away a key tool, where are you going to plug the 
hole in our budget from the hundreds of millions of dollars this year--
to say nothing of next year and the next year--that you don't have from 
killing the Export-Import Bank? People need to realize, these people--
small businesses, big organizations seeking financing--have to pay a 
fee. That fee generates revenue. That revenue is used to pay down the 
Federal deficit. Not only do we create jobs and not only do we reach 
market access, we actually have a government program that is helping us 
pay down the Federal deficit.
  Why would you not want to reinstitute that? The good news is that the 
Senate voted to do that. From what I hear, there are enough people in 
the House of Representatives. People have continued to hold this 
program hostage because people are anxious about the politics of the 
Heritage Foundation, the Koch brothers, or people sending out emails or 
challenging them when in reality you just need to stand up and speak 
for the fact that you want U.S. job creation, and you believe that U.S. 
manufacturers making and building a product and selling it overseas is 
a winning economic strategy for the United States of America. It is. To 
boot, it pays down the deficit. We know that American businesses are 
obviously working hard to try to communicate this. Everybody from the 
manufacturers association to individual workforce organizations is 
trying to express this. I know my colleague Senator Heitkamp has been 
working very hard on this on the banking committee.
  With just a short period of time left before whatever this proposal 
is to shut down the government, which I certainly don't support, we 
have to say to our colleagues that you either have to get this on the 
highway bill--which it is as part of a package that we passed out of 
the Senate--and get either the package that was passed here in the 
Senate passed by the House or come up with another vehicle that gets 
this done, as my colleague from Minnesota just suggested, on the 
continuing resolution or some other bill so that we actually know we 
are giving American businesses the opportunity to continue to compete.
  I hope we will get a long-term solution here. The fact that we have 
sent this message around the United States and the world--that there is 
no longer financing available--has really hurt our competitive 
opportunity at a time when America needs to embrace the fact that there 
is so much business in these developing middle-class markets around the 
globe.
  You can sit here and trade away our opportunity to compete by saying 
I don't want U.S. job creation or deficit reduction. Instead, I want to 
ship jobs overseas. I don't get the strategy. I don't get what someone 
thinks is smart about allowing U.S. jobs to be shipped overseas just 
because they can't get financing here. If the market were willing to 
take those risks without some of the security put forth here, obviously 
people would want to see that. But that is not happening because if you 
are selling grain silos like we are to African nations, there is no 
bank there that is financing that deal. If you are selling product to 
Asian countries that are just developing, whether it is seafood or 
whether it is grain like Bob's Red Mill, they are not always able to 
get financing. This is a way for the United States to win. All we have 
to do is embrace this and make sure that we pass the Export-Import Bank 
as soon as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining in morning 
business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democrats have 9 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from 
Washington for taking the floor and supporting the reauthorization of 
the Export-Import Bank. She has been diligent in coming to Congress and 
explaining that this agency not only facilitates exports from the 
United States, which creates jobs and helps businesses here, but it 
also generates a surplus for the Treasury. What is wrong with that 
picture? Why would the Republicans be so opposed to an agency that 
helps American businesses, large and small, export more goods and 
doesn't cost the Federal Government any money? Why do they want to kill 
this agency? Why do they want to kill these jobs? I don't understand 
it.
  We had a vote on the floor of the Senate a few weeks ago on the 
Transportation bill to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and it 
passed. We sent it over to the House of Representatives which, sadly, 
has become the graveyard for big issues, important issues when it comes 
to the future of America. I hope it changes. I hope they will listen to 
business leaders--that Republicans in the House will listen to business 
leaders and not just Boeing aircraft. Of course I am interested in 
that. It is headquartered in Chicago and is a major employer in the 
United States, but large and small companies alike feel the same. 
Export-Import Bank gives our companies in America the ability to 
finance export deals so they can compete with other countries.
  When we decide--or at least some in the Senate decide--to take the 
United States out of the export business, who is going to step in? Who 
will take over and create the jobs? Sadly, our competitors, China. They 
are not waiting around for their legislature, whatever it may be, to 
give permission for them to dramatically increase exports. They are on 
the road to do that. I support what the Senator from Washington said.

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