Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act- Continued
Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I, too, like the chairman of the Finance Committee, have been here all day, and I empathize with the dilemma that he faces, along with the ranking member, on how to move forward with this legislation.
This is a discussion which has been going on for months and months, if not years, which is, what are we going to do, as we deal with trade issues, about the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which expires at the end of June?
While I appreciate my colleagues on the Finance Committee and the movement of trade legislation, I have had many discussions with them over the last several months about this very issue and the fact that this issue has to get resolved. I know no Member gets to have their way about what legislation gets an amendment. The list that was just given does nothing to guarantee that we would ever see a vote on the authorization of the Ex-Im Bank.
While the other side wants to protect what they think are the opportunities to pass this legislation in the House, which I respect, I do not think the House has to dictate to the U.S. Senate how we are going to proceed when the majority of people in both the House and Senate support the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. Right now, it has deals of $18 billion and more pending before it. If the Bank expires June 30, all of those trade deals, which are jobs for U.S. companies, disappear and go away. So, yes, in my opinion, there is no more important amendment than one that saves $18 billion of U.S. company sales to overseas markets.
So I and my colleagues who support the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization, which is the majority in both the House and Senate, have lost our patience with the ability to get this Bank before the Senate and before the House before that June 30 deadline. So I have no compulsion at this moment to say that I do not support moving forward on the cloture motion until we get an understanding of how this Bank is going to be reauthorized.
I know people are proud of the work that has been done on TPA, but it is silly to say to the American people that we are moving forward on opening up trade opportunities but we are going to let expire the tool that small businesses and individuals use to export their products--as a credit agency. It makes no sense to open up Cambodia if then you cannot get a bank in Cambodia to have the sales of a product from my colleague from South Carolina to that country. If somebody wants to tell me that one of these New York Wall Street banks will give us that kind of financing, then maybe we will come up with a different solution, but one does not exist.
Until our colleagues give us an answer about something we have been clear about for more than a year, we are going to continue to object because we are not going to let this Bank expire--the credit agency--without a fight.
I know my colleague from South Carolina is here on the floor. I appreciate his support of the Ex-Im Bank.
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, the Senator from South Carolina is correct. That is all we have been asking for, and we have talked to our colleagues about various vehicles and various opportunities for those votes. And, yes, that is exactly what has been promised.
We are here today because, as the Senator from South Carolina has described, the failure of us to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank will mean huge opportunities for foreign competitors at the very time when we are trying to open up markets for our U.S. companies. All we are asking is for the opportunity to have this vote. As the majority leader said, let the will of the Senate be done.
The Senator from South Carolina is right. People who have extreme views on this have decided that this is something they can hold up. Well, I don't think we are here today to try to ultimately say how individual people should vote. They should vote their conscience.
The fact that this Bank is about to expire and the fact that these jobs would be lost because we didn't do our job by reauthorizing the Bank is a failure. It is an imminent threat of $18 billion. These are proposed deals for export that will not get approved and will not get done because we won't have a bank. I think the Senate can do better than that.
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