Securing American Jobs Through Exports Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I know we are on the motion to proceed to legislation dealing with the Ex-Im Bank. I rise today to urge my colleagues to proceed to this bill and to move forward and pass H.R. 2072, which would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. We have a lot of debate on this floor on how we can grow our economy and grow jobs. One of the areas where there is agreement is that if America is going to be truly competitive in the 21st century, we have got to grow our export market.

Many American companies over the 20th century were blessed with the world's largest, most vibrant domestic market. But that market is maturing. On a going-forward basis, literally 95 percent of all the world's customer base lies outside the boundaries of the United States. So while maybe some of my colleagues may disagree with many of the President's goals, I think we would all agree that doubling of exports in a 5-year timeframe the President laid out at the beginning of his administration is an area where there is great agreement.

If we are going to do that, we have to use all the tools we have available because, unfortunately, right now American exports as a percentage of GDP rank behind Germany, Canada, China, Italy, France, the UK, India, Brazil. We are way down in the middle of the pack. As the Chair of the Banking Committee's International Trade and Financing Subcommittee, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to get into the details to see how we can make the Export-Import Bank one of the tools we have to help American businesses grow their exports, grow that percentage of GDP that depends upon trade, grow that ability to reach that 95 percent of the customer base around the world, and to make sure that this tool, which has been a successful tool for close to 45 years, gets reauthorized but also is reauthorized in a way that brings more transparency and more accountability to this institution.

The bill we will have before us, hopefully later today, does that, because if we fail to act, the authorization for the Export-Import Bank expires at the end of this month, and this tool that is so important to growing exports, growing jobs, candidly will be lost.

The bill we will take up, hopefully later today or shortly, reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank for 3 years. While I would have preferred a longer extension and a higher limit, higher absolute total loan limit, I am glad the bill we will deal with increases the bank's lending limit from $100 billion to $140 billion.

Remember, our Export-Import Bank is so much smaller than any of our competitors'. Even taking the lending cap up to $140 billion will still mean we will pale in comparison to our competitors. These other nations are who we are competing with. I think it is important that we compare how our Export-Import Bank--which again in this last year made a profit, returned money to the taxpayers, and has been profitable year in and year out--how our institution compares with those of our competitors: Canada, our largest trading partner, the Canada that has a population size about one-tenth--actually smaller than one-tenth the size of the United States--has their equivalent Export-Import Bank three times the size of our Export-Import Bank.

Every day our Export-Import Bank and the American companies it supports face aggressive competition, as I mentioned, from China, Brazil, India, which all have very large export financing banks in their own right. In 2010 alone China did $45 billion in lending, two-thirds of that to a single company, lending that was supported by their exporting financing operations, while our domestic Export-Import Bank did just $13 billion in total. So China, close to over 3 times, supporting their institutions, one of our largest competitors, versus our support for our American industry at one-third the size.

That same year, Brazil, a country much smaller than ours, provided $18 billion in export finance; Germany, more than $22 billion; France, more than $17 billion; all much more than what we do. Each of them only has, as I mentioned, in total about one-fifth of our population.

So why would we, if we all agree that growing trade, growing exports, trying to access that 95 percent of the customer base that would then support American companies that are going to hire American workers, why would we unilaterally disarm and remove this tool from our toolbox as some in this Chamber have suggested?

Ironically, because in our country, we do not provide, I believe, adequate export financing, many American companies have gone to foreign export agencies, the result being if they get that foreign export support, oftentimes the price of that foreign export support means that subcontractors to those American companies then have to come from those respective countries, whether it is Canada, Brazil, India, et cetera, again costing American jobs.

I think this is a commonsense tool. It is a tool that has had a solid track record. It is a tool that has never cost the American taxpayers a dime. It is one that needs our immediate attention. Again, I hope we will get a large, overwhelming bipartisan majority of Senators who will reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, will reauthorize it at this $140 billion level, will reauthorize it with the new transparency provisions that I was proud to add to this legislation, will reauthorize it with some of the new requirements in which the Export-Import Bank puts together a more comprehensive business plan, all additions that I worked on with my colleagues and added to this legislation.

That is, again, one more example where we can demonstrate to the American people we can come and work together, trying to spur that kind of job growth and export growth we are all looking for.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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