[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 13, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S3247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Nomination of Owen Edward Herrnstadt

  Madam President, I urge my colleagues to support another nominee out 
of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Owen 
Herrnstadt, who is the nominee to be a member of the Board of Directors 
of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
  Like Mr. Barr, Mr. Herrnstadt received bipartisan support out of the 
Banking Committee. We now have four of the five members of the Ex-Im 
Bank. We will have, after today, after this week--I am hopeful--four of 
the five members of the Export-Import Bank confirmed and in place. We 
are still waiting for Senator McConnell to tell the White House and 
offer the fifth nominee, a Republican nominee, so we can fill out that 
Board.
  Our foreign competitors operate more than 100 export credit agencies 
and credit programs supporting their manufacturers. China's export 
finance activity is larger than all of the export credit that G7 
countries collectively provide, and China will continue to use export 
credit to win manufacturing business in critical sectors.

  I would point out, parenthetically, that under this new leadership in 
the Senate and new leadership in the White House, for the first time in 
20 years, our economy is growing faster than China's. Our GDP growth is 
actually faster than that of the People's Republic of China--something 
we haven't seen in 20 years.
  Mr. Herrnstadt will help lead our Nation's official export credit 
Agency as it supports American workers and manufacturers throughout our 
country. He has served some 30 years in senior roles at the 
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and he 
has served on Ex-Im's Advisory Committee. He is more than qualified to 
join the Ex-Im Board.
  He will be a voice for American workers. He understands, as the 
majority of this Senate does, that we put workers at the center of our 
economy, workers at the center of our economic policy, and workers at 
the center of policymaking in this institution. Too often, American 
workers, as Mr. Herrnstadt fully understands, have been forced to 
compete with unfair foreign competition for far, far too long.
  The Banking Committee reported his nomination by voice vote twice--
last fall and again earlier this year. Again, as a 30-year-long labor 
activist, fighting for workers, he is supported by the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other 
advocates for American businesses and workers.
  Yet, despite his receiving broad support, a small number of Senators 
continues to oppose anything--anything--related to the Ex-Im Bank, so 
we are forced to have a cloture vote today on his nomination.
  Our competitors are not going to stop financing their business sales. 
We need Ex-Im to compete, and Mr. Herrnstadt is needed on that Board to 
help the Ex-Im Bank deliver results.
  He will join Ex-Im President Reta Jo Lewis; my fellow Ohioan and 
first Vice President, Judith Pryor; and Ex-Im Board member and former 
Congressman Spencer Bachus, a Republican from Alabama, who have been 
working on a bipartisan basis to carry out the mission given by 
Congress in the 2019 reauthorization to help American exporters compete 
with China.
  We know--and the Acting President pro tempore has been very engaged 
in this in her Senate career--that bad trade agreements and bad tax 
policy have led to far too many companies shutting down production in 
Worcester, MA, and Wooster, OH, and to their moving overseas and 
selling those products back into the United States while exploiting 
cheap labor and exploiting weak environmental laws and weak worker 
safety laws but gaining from bad American trade policy and bad American 
tax policy.
  The Ex-Im Bank helps us to correct that. So does Brown-Wyden and what 
we have done to level the playing field on those issues that this new 
majority in the Senate, with this new President, has finally decided to 
enact, making a real difference in not just our balance of trade but 
making, fundamentally, the most important difference--a real 
difference--for American workers who are the most productive in the 
world.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Owen 
Herrnstadt's nomination to the Export-Import Bank Board.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.