[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2255-S2256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Export-Import Bank

  I just want to say I am representing a special interest group, too, 
the workers of this country--the workers who have lost jobs because we 
do not have a functioning Ex-Im Bank; the workers whose opportunity to 
earn a living has been compromised because we don't have an Ex-Im Bank 
that is functioning; the workers who are now handed a big 50-pound 
weight against a Chinese worker, when the Chinese are pumping money 
into their export agencies and competing unfairly because we don't have 
an Ex-Im Bank.
  Can we just for a minute be for the workers?
  The Ex-Im Bank does not cost the taxpayer and has not cost the 
taxpayer a dime. In fact, it returns money to the Treasury. It is a 
win-win, but yet here we are, based on strictly ideological grounds, 
arguing the value of the Ex-Im Bank.
  My colleague from Pennsylvania said he wants reform. I will state 
that we passed an effort I led in order to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. 
That was a big fight. That was not a little deal; that was a big fight. 
In fact, we had to hold up votes on TPA so we could get a commitment on 
reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank because you can't authorize trade 
agreements and then take away an integral part and necessary part of 
the trade structure, which is the Ex-Im Bank.
  So let me state, all of these reforms that we agreed to were 
critical, such as the appointment of a chief ethics officer, 
appointment of a chief risk officer, forming the risk management 
committee--pretty important to carry out responsibility.
  Guess why these reforms aren't being done. Because we don't have a 
functioning Ex-Im Bank. We do not have what we need to get these 
actions approved. So when we go through this whole process and we begin 
to talk about this and we say this is about reform--no, it is not. Is 
this about saving the taxpayers money? No, it is not. This is about an 
ideology. This is about third-party interest groups making this their 
chief whipping boy, inappropriately, and stopping American jobs.
  We are in some pretty tough times right now with China, potentially 
in a trade war, with the potential to really, I think, hurt our country 
moving forward for decades to come--think about that--at a time when we 
are trying to drive this economy into the 21st century to provide an 
opportunity for us to actually win in trade.
  Now, I like to tell young people who come into my office: If you 
don't remember anything else that I have talked about, remember the 
number five--five. Now, 95 percent of the people on this Earth do not 
live in this country. If we are not trading with them, if we are not 
aggressively using every tool in the toolbox to reach out and trade 
with them, we are going to lose. We are not going to lose just in the 
next 2, 3, or 4 years, but we are going to lose a whole generation of 
opportunity and get left behind.
  So it is time for us to step up and get a fully functioning Ex-Im 
Bank. How do we do that? Well, we approve the four nominees whom 
Ranking Member Brown has advanced and who have been stopped. The four 
nominees are incredibly well qualified. They had a great hearing. The 
Presiding Officer sits on that committee with me and knows how 
incredibly qualified they are. Yet, because of a minority opinion, we 
are held off again.
  We don't have a Bank that is working, and the people who work for 
that Bank, who have developed relationships, developed expertise, they 
have waited too long. We are losing every day. We are losing this piece 
of trade infrastructure that is absolutely critical to the competition 
for American businesses.
  Let's talk about what we are up against. The lack of the Ex-Im Bank 
board quorum has left $44 billion of exports on the table. They can't 
get approved because we don't have a quorum. OK, so it is a big number. 
Do you know what is a bigger number? When you take that and you 
translate it into American jobs, there are a quarter of a million 
American jobs that are going to be lost, that are going to be diverted 
to other countries because we are in this petty squabble right here 
with a minority group of people.
  I want to add some other pieces. Every day that passes without a 
quorum, Congress is risking these deals, so let me tell you about some 
of these deals. Mack Trucks can't export Pennsylvania-manufactured 
vehicles to Cameroon. A U.S. engineering company

[[Page S2256]]

can't build a highway in Mozambique. A major petrochemical company in 
Egypt is on hold, and an energy project in Mozambique cannot be 
finalized. Hoffman International, a small business in New Jersey, can't 
finalize a deal with the Government of Cameroon.
  If we are not trading, we are losing in this country. And if we don't 
have an Ex-Im Bank, we don't have a fully functioning trade apparatus. 
That is truth. So it is time to put aside this petty squabble.
  I want to remark briefly that when we started the reauthorization 
effort, I was told: There is no way; you can't get the majority 
opinion.
  The Ex-Im Bank got almost 70 votes here--almost 70 votes for 
reauthorization. When it went over to the House, where we were told 
once again that we could never get the political support for 
reauthorization, that it is too toxic, too high profile, guess what--
well, 70 percent of the House of Representatives voted for the Ex-Im 
Bank.
  We are being held captive. There are 250,000 American workers being 
held captive by an ideology that is going to fail us and doom our 
export effort to failure for not just the next couple of years but for 
a generation to come. The whole while, do you know what China is doing? 
When China's growth took a little dip, they pumped even more billions 
of dollars into their ex-im bank, into their ex-im credit agency. Do 
you think they did that because they thought it was a worthless 
gesture? No. They did it because they knew they could compete against 
us.
  Let's not fail these 250,000 workers. Let's not fail to be smart in 
our competition with China. Let's get this done. The only way to get it 
done is to get a quorum on the Ex-Im Bank, and the only way to get a 
quorum is to break the deadlock that is here, stop leading with 
ideology, start leading with common sense, and start leading with the 
opportunity to respond to one of the most significant special interests 
groups in this country; that is, the American workers.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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