U.S. Export-Import Bank Decision Kills 1,000 New Jobs

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.''

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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