Business groups and the White House are urging Congress to use a must-pass spending bill to make the Export-Import Bank fully operational again, setting up a showdown with conservatives who oppose the agency’s existence.
Over the past year, the Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im, has been unable to approve transactions of more than $10 million because the Senate Banking Committee has declined to fill vacant seats on the bank’s board of directors.
But with Congress in the midst of debating the terms of a continuing resolution to fund the government into next year, the bank’s supporters say lawmakers should take action to help it during the lame-duck session before the new Congress convenes in early January.
Ex-Im provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign companies and countries for the purchase of U.S. products.
In a list of requests for policy changes in the continuing resolution sent to Capitol Hill, the White House included a provision that would change the quorum requirement for Ex-Im’s board, allowing it to approve transactions of more than $10 million despite the three open seats on the five-member board.
“Without the anomaly, the Export-Import Bank would remain unable to approve new transactions valued at over $10 million, which has significantly hampered the Export-Import Bank’s operations and has caused a number of U.S. companies to relocate some of their business overseas in order to obtain financing from foreign export credit agencies,” the White House wrote in its list of requests, called anomalies, to Congress.
The language referenced by the White House was championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, both Republicans who support the bank.
According to Ex-Im’s charter, three of the agency’s five board members are needed to approve transactions of more than $10 million.
But since December, just two seats have been filled. President Barack Obama’s nominee for the board, Republican Mark McWatters, is being held up in the Senate Banking Committee by Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
If the language backed by the White House is included in the spending measure, the two current board members would constitute a quorum to approve all loans, despite the vacant seats.
The Obama administration has put itself on the same side as pro-business groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers, a fierce defender of Ex-Im.
Like the White House, the organization is urging Congress to take action during the lame-duck session to bring Ex-Im back to full functionality.
“As long as the Ex-Im Bank cannot fully operate, America will lose manufacturing jobs to other countries, which are winning new sales and manufacturing while our hands are tied,” Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement. “It’s time for Congress to show some backbone—and real leadership—to make the agency work again for hardworking Americans across the country.”
Despite the push by the Obama administration, conservative groups have come out in full force against the provision.
Club for Growth, Freedom Partners, and Senate Conservatives Action, a grassroots organization run by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, are urging conservative lawmakers to oppose any changes to the quorum requirement.
“Washington lobbyists will stop at nothing to turn a year-end spending bill into a Christmas tree for lame-duck lawmakers and corporate special interests,” Andy Koenig, vice president of policy for Freedom Partners, said in a statement.
“The Ex-Im Bank was an open bar for special interests—President Obama wants to keep it open, Congress should close it out,” Koenig said.
Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of The Heritage Foundation, said the government bank currently operates as an export lender for primarily small businesses.
Changing Ex-Im’s quorum effectively would disregard the message voters sent to Washington in the Nov. 8 election, he said.
“Any effort to change the board’s quorum will rightly be seen as doing the business of massive international companies and Wall Street banks—banks that consider Ex-Im subsidies as little more than ‘free money,’” Holler told The Daily Signal. “Americans voted to drain the swamp, not throw ‘free money’ around to the well connected.”
If Republicans ultimately leave the language changing Ex-Im’s quorum requirement out of the upcoming spending bill, it could cripple the bank for years into the administration of Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as president Jan. 20.
Trump last year told Bloomberg News he opposes the bank, calling the 82-year-old agency “unnecessary.”
“It’s sort of a featherbedding for politicians and others, and a few companies, and these companies that can do very well without it,” Trump said. “I think it’s a lot of excess baggage.”
The president-elect’s transition team did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the Ex-Im measure.
Shelby, who has held up the board nominations, will not be chairman of the Senate Banking Committee next year. However, his likely successor, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has voted against reauthorizing the government bank.
During a spending fight in September, the bank’s Republican and Democratic supporters pushed congressional leaders to include the loosening of Ex-Im’s quorum requirement in a short-term bill funding the government until Dec. 9.
But GOP leaders ultimately left the provision out of the continuing resolution, a decision rebuked by Graham and other bank supporters.
For much of its 82-year lifespan, Ex-Im was reauthorized by Congress with little to no debate. But in 2012, conservative lawmakers began stepping up efforts to end the bank, pitting them against Democrats and liberal Republicans.
The bank’s opponents argue that Ex-Im furthers cronyism and corporate welfare and, in June 2015, succeeded in closing the bank’s doors, albeit briefly.
Ex-Im’s charter lapsed for several months, but Republicans and Democrats brought it back to life near the end of 2015 through a must-pass transportation bill.