[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12726-12727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         U.S. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK DECISION KILLS 1,000 NEW JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the thing that people need 
across this Nation, from shore to shore today, more than anything else 
is jobs. Yet, the United States Export-Import Bank just recently made a 
decision that kills 1,000 new jobs. The recent U.S. Export-Import Bank 
denial of a loan guarantee to help finance the purchase of U.S.-made 
coal mining machinery by an Indian power company exposes the hypocrisy 
of the Obama administration and many in the environmental community.
  According to its mission statement: ``The Export-Import Bank of the 
United States, known as Ex-Im Bank, is the official export credit 
agency of the United States with the mission to assist in financing the 
export of U.S. goods and services.'' Well, at least that's what it 
states.
  The mined coal in India that the U.S.-manufactured machinery would 
have produced would be used for a new power plant in one of India's 
poorest regions.
  A subsidiary of Reliance International Limited of India was to use 
the loan guarantee to buy $600 million worth of Wisconsin Bucyrus 
International mining machinery, which represents 1,000 U.S. jobs.
  In a party-line vote of two Democrats to one Republican, the loan 
guarantee was turned down, not for economic reasons, but because it was 
contrary to the new White House policy of not funding ``projects with 
heavy carbon emissions,'' in this case a coal fired power plant.
  One of the Democrat Members who voted against the loan said he was 
following President Obama's commitment to a clean energy future and 
voted against the loan because of the ``projected adverse environmental 
impact.''

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                              {time}  2320

  If the two Democrats who denied the loan were at all interested in 
the environmental impact, they would have voted for the loan. Likewise 
for the President, who should overturn this denial. The decision will 
not help the environment. In fact, it damages the environment, 
contributes to poverty, and instead of creating U.S. jobs, as the 
President promised, destroys at least 1,000 of the United States' jobs.
  Forty percent of India's 1.15 billion people have no access to the 
power grid. That is 1\1/2\ times the population of the United States. 
India is estimated to have one-third of the world's poor. Without 
access to electricity, 70 percent of which is provided by coal, the 
challenge of daily life for 460 million of India's poor will remain as 
stagnant as their water, and they will have no choice but to continue 
to burn wood and dung for their energy sources.
  As Barun Mitra, president of Liberty University of Delhi, India, 
stated, quote, ``The human health, economic, and environmental impact 
of burning these 'renewable fuels' is immense. Young children and women 
spend hours each day in the drudgery of collecting firewood or 
squatting in mud laced with animal feces and urine, to collect, dry, 
and store manure for use in cooking, heat, and light rather than 
attending school or engaging in more satisfying or productive economic 
activity. The refrigerators, televisions, computers that 
environmentalists take for granted are not to be seen here.''
  Mitra further notes that the environmentalists conspicuously ignore 
the real risks that poor people face today, including indoor air 
pollution caused by burning, quote, ``renewable biomass fuel.'' Quoting 
the World Health Organization, ``More than half of the world's 
population rely on dung, wood, crop waste, or coal to meet their most 
basic energy needs. Cooking and heating with such solid fuels on open 
fires or stoves without chimneys leads to indoor air pollution.
  Exposure is particularly high among women and children, who spend 
most of their time near the domestic hearth. Every year, indoor air 
pollution is responsible for the death of 1.6 million people. That's 
one death every 20 seconds. The use of polluting fuels poses a major 
burden on the health of poor families in developing countries such as 
India. The dependence on such fuels is both a cause and a result of 
poverty, as poor households often do not have the resources to obtain 
cleaner, more efficient fuels and appliances. Reliance on simple 
household fuels and appliances can compromise health, and thus hold 
back economic development, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.
  According to the 2004 assessment of the International Energy Agency, 
the number of people relying on biomass such as wood, dung, 
agricultural residues for cooking and heating will continue to rise. I 
might add, especially if the Obama administration anti-coal policy 
continues.
  If the President is serious about cleaning up the world's environment 
and creating American jobs, he should tell his followers at the U.S. 
Import-Export Bank to approve the loan guarantee. The irony is that the 
coal-fired generation plant will be built no matter the Obama policy, 
but U.S.-manufactured mining machinery won't be used thanks to the 
President and his followers at the congressionally-funded U.S.-job 
killing Import-Export Bank.

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