Export-Import Bank

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUCAS. Congressman Newhouse, I am very appreciative of you organizing this Special Order to discuss an issue that perhaps not many of our neighbors back home have had time to focus on and to have speakers from a variety of perspectives discuss what it really means in job creation, economic growth, opportunities in their home districts and their communities, the Export-Import Bank.

I would be remiss if I didn't note to our colleagues, you and I are both farmers, and one of the common threads in agriculture throughout this great country is, since colonial times, we have always produced more than we could consume in this country. We have always had to sell our surplus in the world markets. That is the only way that we could maintain a healthy production agriculture, to have reasonable job opportunities, a reasonable standard of living in our agricultural communities.

Export-Import touches on many of those issues, created in the 1930s as a tool to help all parts of the American economy have the credit and the ability to sell in the world markets.

As a matter of fact, the concept is so practical, it has been so well-defined, as you and I both know, 50-plus other countries have the same type of a system to help their manufacturers, their producers, their economic interests do business into the outside world.

Now, that said, we have been engaged for some time on the Financial Services Committee and in this body in a very, at times, heated debate about whether not just should Export-Import Bank be reformed to make it more efficient, make it more accountable, more responsible to the taxpayers, but whether it should even exist at all.

Now, some of our colleagues believe that, with a lack of action, the official expiration of the authorization, it is gone. We have heard our friends say here today that until all of the loans that are outstanding, all of the guarantees, all of the obligations that have been committed to are completed, the institution will continue to exist. It simply cannot provide new economic opportunities to do business around the world for our people.

And that brings us to this point, and I think it is the point that I want to stress. Can Export-Import Bank, in its present form, be reformed? Can it be made better? Can it be made more accountable?

Of course. There is not an institution in government anywhere that can't be made better, more efficient, more effective, more accountable to the taxpayers.

But the real tragedy of what is going on here is we have been presented, many of us, with the stark debate of end it all or, through circumstances beyond our control, have it reauthorized, most likely in its present form, without any of those reforms. That is why many of us are on the Fincher bill, because we believe Export-Import serves a purpose in helping create better jobs, more economic opportunities for many of our citizens, but that it needs to be done in a more responsible, accountable fashion.

I have been highly disappointed that we have not had a debate, a markup in committee on this very issue that would have ultimately led, I believe, to a debate and consideration on the floor of this United States House so that we could potentially have sent a better product than we have now to the other body. We have not been allowed to do that.

So now we are faced with a stark contrast. How do we continue this very effective effort at moving our products into the world markets, creating those jobs here at home for our fellow citizens?

Either we have to wait for a bill to come from the other body, most likely not containing the level of reforms that we would have placed in such a reauthorization bill in the House, or, at some point, we will have a markup, either in committee or on the floor, of another piece of legislation where there will be an effort to attach it. That kind of an effort probably won't contain the level of Fincher reforms that we all want.

That is the tragedy, Congressman. We are going to reauthorize Export-Import. It is just, in what form will it be reauthorized?

We cannot allow 50-plus of our competitors around the world to have a tool, a resource, an ability for their businesses to push their products into the American economy that we don't match punch for punch economically. We cannot allow that to happen.

I hope we are going to work on behalf of our fellow workers, our fellow citizens, our fellow businesspeople in this country. But it is a tragedy, Congressman, that we are not going to have the kind of discussion and debate where we could create a dramatically improved, refined, or reformed Export-Import Bank.

We each represent our constituents. I care about mine just as you care about every one of yours, and making sure that we have the ability--the ability--for all those citizens to have good jobs, good-paying jobs, good, new economic opportunities, is just too important for us to back away--too important for us to back away.

If we don't get the reforms that our fellow citizens deserve, it won't be because you and I didn't try. We have tried for months. It will be because the choices thrust upon us by others are either all or nothing at all, present or nothing.

I want to keep selling those products that our hard-working fellow citizens make into the world market. I want to keep competing economically, blow for blow, with the rest of the world.

You know, some have said: Let's just do away with Export-Import. We will establish the principle, and the rest of the world will follow us.

Does anybody really believe that, that when we give up our ability to sell our products into other markets they will suddenly say: Oh, what a great principle. We will stop selling into your markets.

That is not the way it works, Dan, not the way it works. I appreciate the gentleman's time, his effort on this critically important issue. Something will happen; it is just how soon and in what form.

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