Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Authorization Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. I appreciate the comments made by the Senator from Connecticut, and I come to the floor to talk about a very important issue, U.S. manufacturing jobs and what the Senate needs to do to make sure we are protecting U.S. manufacturing jobs.

I am speaking of the need to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, a credit agency that helps U.S. manufacturers and small businesses sell their products to overseas markets.

Some of you may have read recently comments by some of our colleagues where they have shifted their position. The agency is set to expire on September 30 of this year, and it is so critical that we reauthorize this program because it is such an important tool for U.S. manufacturers.

Over the last few weeks, fringe organizations and activists have suddenly tried to turn this into a political casualty, saying we should kill the program, and I am here to advocate that it is a win-win situation for American manufacturers, for American taxpayers, and for the jobs it creates. That is because the Export-Import Bank supports about 1.2 million jobs, it returned $1 billion to the U.S. Treasury last year alone, and it supports between 35,000 suppliers of manufactured parts, and that was just in the year 2011. As this chart shows, the Export-Import Bank helps us generate export sales and supports 1.2 million jobs. That is between 2009 and 2013.

One would think a program that doesn't cost the taxpayers any money, actually helps us pay down the deficit, helps create that many export sales and that many jobs would be something we would want to reauthorize and give predictability to businesses all across the United States.

In fact, if the credit agency is not reauthorized, nearly 90 percent of the companies that would be harmed are small businesses. Sure, there are big companies such as Boeing or General Electric or Caterpillar that help sell products around the globe, and some of my colleagues want to criticize that somehow we should be apologizing for the fact that we actually make expensive products and sell them.

I am quite proud that we sell products from the United States to China and various parts all around the globe that are actually expensive products. We should be proud we are making something worth millions of dollars that people want to buy. So I am glad that ``Made In the USA'' is actually closing deals all across the globe.

Today we also want to highlight that all of these companies that are in the manufacturing sector are part of a manufacturing chain. We know this well, because in the State of Washington, when we look at who makes aerospace products, while we can say there is a company in Everett, WA, named Boeing, there are hundreds of companies, thousands of companies across the United States that are part of what is called the supply chain.

Behind every 777 or Caterpillar tractor there are thousands of workers who are working every day to refine their product, stay competitive, retrain, and refocus to make sure we build the very best products in the United States and that we are competing on a global basis.

When these larger companies and small businesses they work with try to win deals overseas, they run into lots of different challenges. That is why we are here today to say making sure we reauthorize this program is critically important to small business manufacturers and suppliers throughout the United States.

So with all of these small businesses and companies--30,000 to 35,000 companies across the United States--there is actually a supplier in every State in the United States, but let's look at some of the numbers.

In Georgia, there are over 833 different companies, such as United Seal and Rubber Company and other important companies, that make products just for aviation or for Caterpillar or for other products.

In the State of Florida, there are over 1,252 different small businesses and manufacturers that are helping to produce products that are sold on an international basis, and those companies want the Export-Import Bank reauthorized.

In the State of Wisconsin, there are over 1,397 different suppliers, such as Hentzen Coatings in Milwaukee, which provides primer, sealer, and wing coating. These are companies that also want to see the reauthorization of this important tool that helps products they help manufacture and build be sold in international markets.

Of course, there are places, such as Texas, which have a lot of people in the supply chain. Here are just some of the companies that are involved in manufacturing that take advantage of this important export-created agency by building products into final assembly. They are all over the State of Texas.

In fact, here is another continued list of these companies from Texas that are part of building products that are then using the Export-Import Bank to sell their products around the globe. But we can't go over all of those in Texas because there are actually 4,355 different companies in the State of Texas that are involved in the supply chain of companies that are selling products through the export credit agency and its assistance.

So we can see this is not a program that just affects one State or one region; it is an example of small business manufacturers working everywhere to stay competitive, to sell products, and win in the international marketplace.

Personally, having visited many of these companies in the State of Washington, I find it very frustrating, as these people are working night and day to make the best airplanes, to make the best manufactured product, to take the risk to go and sell in overseas markets, to compete with international competitors, to retrain and reskill a workforce, that we have people in Congress who don't have the good common sense to understand what an important tool the Export-Import Bank is in helping U.S. manufacturers sell into new emerging markets.

I know there are other States--we are not going to show charts about them--but in Ohio--I know the Presiding Officer is from Ohio--there are over 1,700 suppliers.

These companies are companies such as Hartzell Propeller. They are a family-owned propeller manufacturer in Southwest Ohio. Hartzell is part of the

Dayton aviation economy that dates back to the Wright brothers. In fact, it was Orville Wright who suggested that the Hartzell family build an airplane propeller.

Today the Wright brothers are gone, but this company is still here and they are still innovating. In fact, I think they are part of the spirit of innovation in America that makes it so great.

I am so frustrated that people here don't understand that innovative spirit, don't understand what it takes, don't understand that they are hampering--truly right now almost torturing--small businesses by not giving them the certainty and predictability for the export assistance program.

This company builds crop-dusting plane propellers. Hartzell has grown its company from about 13 to about 300 people in the last 3 years, and that is because these crop-dusting planes have been sold using the Export-Import Bank. The loans haven't come directly to Hartzell as part of the Ex-Im supply chain, but companies similar to them that make these propellers are important companies to making sure we win in the international marketplace.

The President of this company, Joe Hartzell, I thought said it best. He said:

If you take Ex-Im away from my customers, you might as well bring unemployment checks to their offices, because you're going to put people on the street. If they're not building as many airplanes, then I'm going to have a jobs problem.

Here is a manufacturer--I heard the same thing in Seattle a few weeks ago when I was there--a company in Ohio saying if we don't get this program reauthorized, we are going to have bigger problems. So people such as Hartzell are trying to tell everyone here we need to keep working to make sure we get this reauthorized.

We need to make sure companies throughout the Midwest, such as in Wichita, KS, or people in the West, such as in Tempe, AZ, or companies in Irving, TX, everywhere where we are part of this huge supply chain, are doing the work we need to do.

Another area that is big on the supply chain is in the general area of aviation, and it supports over 200,000 jobs. So 200,000 jobs represents the number of people who are involved in aviation today, and those are individuals, businesses that are doing their best to stay competitive in aviation, even though we have incredible competition.

This incredible competition comes from the fact that there are so many different companies around the globe that also want to build airplanes. There is a demand for 35,000 new airplanes over the next 20 years. So we can imagine every country wants to try to build airplanes. China wants to build airplanes. Brazil is already in the business, Canada, the Europeans. Everybody wants to build airplanes.

The good news for us is we actually have a supply chain in the United States, and this chart represents that supply chain of 15,000 manufacturers and over 1.5 million jobs.

These are all companies throughout the United States of America who are involved in using the Export-Import Bank to make sure their products are sold on an international basis. There are actually jobs in companies in every State of the Union that take advantage of being part of this supply chain.

And why it is so important to keep the supply chain? Because if you keep the supply chain in your country, then you have the skill set it takes to keep innovating, because each of these companies is working on the individual parts and making them the best they can possibly be. That way we get the efficient airplane of today. This innovation is taking place all across the country, and we have to stay competitive.

Now, get rid of the Export-Import Bank and over time this supply chain will start to disappear. Why? Because in Europe they will still have an Export-Import Bank, and companies such as Airbus will continue to use that product and they will have a supply chain, and over time all these small businesses and all this expertise in aviation will move out of the United States of America to somewhere else. Then what manufacturing jobs will we have in the United States?

Aviation is one of the best sectors for manufacturing that we have today. With over 1.5 million employees, we need to keep aviation manufacturing competitive in the United States of America. That is why we need to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.

There are other sectors of aviation, such as Gulfstream, which is another company, based in Savannah, GA, and has been one of the foremost makers of business jets. They have watched their international competition increase steadily over the last decade, and the Export-Import Bank has helped them be competitive. The Gulfstream supply chain has about 3,500 different businesses and about 13,000 employees, and all those employees are working hard to try to stay competitive. They are working to make sure we keep those jobs in the United States of America. But they also have to have the Export-Import Bank so they can then continue to win in the international marketplace. Gulfstream actually sells product to China. So jobs in Georgia and throughout the supply chain are helping us win in the international marketplace.

Whether they are composite companies or light industrial or fuselage skins, all of these things are helping people be competitive.

Right now, Gulfstream and the supply chain has sold 8,000 planes to China. That helped support 2,100 jobs, and most of those jobs were right in the Savannah, GA, area. So if we are going to cancel the Export-Import Bank, how are they going to get these products financed and how are they going to get them sold?

While we are very appreciative of both sectors of aviation--the commercial sector and general aviation sector, and we haven't even talked about the others, such as the defense sectors of aviation--these are two big components to our economy. Some people might think, well, there is a way to get these planes sold, or these are big companies, these are integral parts to our U.S. manufacturing base, and we need to keep it. The demand of the United States, as I said earlier, is for 35,000 new planes over the next 20 years, and 80 percent of those planes will be delivered outside of the United States. That means if we want to keep winning the race for airplane sales, we are going to have to work outside the United States.

Yesterday, Standard & Poor's reported that if the Export-Import Bank is not reauthorized, it would be a huge benefit to Airbus. In fact, they said:

..... Airbus would still be able to offer ..... financing, and this could be a deciding factor for some new aircraft contracts, especially in emerging markets and for sales to start-up or financially weak airlines.

In other words, we would be sending U.S. jobs overseas, and that is not what we want to do. Countries are building up their investment to try to compete with us, and the Export-Import Bank is a key tool for U.S. manufacturers to compete.

Trade is a critically important part of our economy. In 2013, U.S. exports reached $2.3 trillion worth of goods, and a key part of that export growth can be attributed to this program. The Export-Import Bank supported $37.4 billion worth of U.S. exports which supported over 200,000 jobs in the United States. That alone is enough information for me to say the Senate ought to act quickly to reauthorize this program.

There are many other aspects of the Export-Import Bank that help small businesses and manufacturing. In fact, there are about 12 million manufacturing jobs in the United States, and 1 in 4 jobs is tied to exports. That is why, when I think my colleagues try to portray the Export-Import Bank as an issue that maybe a few big companies would benefit from, I think they have it totally wrong. This is an issue about the competitive nature of manufacturing and the supply chain of manufacturers all across the United States, and whether we want to keep manufacturing jobs--because they are high-wage, high-skilled jobs--in the United States.

While my colleagues would like to talk about other things in the economy, I think it is important to realize how manufacturing jobs are a higher wage. They are a higher wage than service-sector jobs, they help stabilize the middle class, they help the U.S. economy grow because of those large export numbers, and they help the United States continue to innovate and stay ahead in a global marketplace. All of

these are reasons why the Export-Import Bank is such a viable tool.

Think about it from the perspective of being a critical part of manufacturing, and these are the high-wage jobs and it supports that supply chain I just went through. Then we can see why it is so important that this get done before the end of September.

Right now, what is happening is my colleagues not only want to threaten to not reauthorize this program, they actually want to kill it. My guess is they would like to say: OK, we will agree to a short-term extension of a few months, only in hopes of killing it later.

I want to make sure all my colleagues know how important it is not only that we reauthorize this, but we reauthorize it for several years so companies have the predictability and certainty to know the program is going to be there and they have the support.

The Export-Import Bank has four primary tools. It has loan guarantees that provide security to commercial lenders who make loans to foreign buyers of American products. For example, the loan helped Goss International in New Hampshire sell their printing presses in emerging markets in Brazil.

We have export credit insurance, and companies such as Manhasset in Yakima, in my State of Washington, used it to help get their music stands sold across the globe and make sure there was credit insurance to protect them.

There are loan programs, for example, to help foreign buyers of U.S. products such as FirmGreen in Newport Beach, CA, which is run by a disabled veteran who helped to sell their goods in Brazil.

It also provides working capital like in Morrison Technologies manufacturing in South Carolina which used the tools to purchase materials needed for a recent surge in business that couldn't have been met without that financing.

So here they are, all these companies throughout the country using the Export-Import Bank and staying competitive. I personally would make the Export-Import Bank bigger. When we look at what China is doing or what Europe is doing, they are making a bigger financial investment in helping their businesses become exporters.

In the United States, the Export-Import Bank finances less than 5 percent of U.S. exports. A significant portion of the capital of exports is done in the private sector, but this tool helps commercial banks and helps commercial manufacturers get their product when other avenues aren't available in the private sector.

Here is an example of one of the programs and how the Export-Import Bank works. We can see the U.S. exporter sells to the foreign buyer and that commercial financing is still part of the equation. The Export-Import Bank is only used as a safety net to make sure that financial commercial obligation is secure in this situation. So it is not as if we are replacing commercial banking, it is not as if we aren't even making market rates. We are for products such as aerospace.

The issue is, we need to make sure commercial banks are willing to guarantee these kinds of sales. We are providing a safety net with the Export-Import Bank. And what has the cost been to the U.S. Government? Well, we have had incredible success, because everybody pays fees into this system, and those fees and the success of the program has helped us pay down the Federal deficit. That is right; it has actually made money for U.S. taxpayers and helped us pay down the Federal deficit.

It supports 1.2 million export-related jobs, it has helped support $37 billion in exports from the United States, which helps our economy, and it has returned more than $1 billion to U.S. taxpayers. I would call that a win-win situation for American jobs and American taxpayers.

We have 73 days left until that program expires. I don't want to let that happen. So today we are announcing that over 200 different supply chain companies are sending a letter to the Senate and House of Representatives asking them to urgently support the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.

We are also hearing from lots of businesses and business organizations that also support the immediate reauthorization: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, National Association of Businesses, the International Association of Machinists, National Grain and Feed Association, and many more organizations. All of them want to be able to say ``Made in the USA,'' and have their products sold overseas.

I hope my colleagues will be there to help ensure this program gets reauthorized in a short amount of time. I personally hope the Senate will take up this legislation in the next few weeks before we adjourn for the August recess. I would hate to see what happens to all the business deals these manufacturers have on the table if they go home in August and people are saying: Well, the bank only has a few days left to be reauthorized; I am not going to do business with you until I know. Or if somebody tries to stick a 5-month reauthorization on some bill, and then everybody still says: When is this program going to be reauthorized? Otherwise, I am not going to do a deal with U.S. manufacturers.

Of all the things we are doing in sending a message to the actual competitors of creating jobs in today's economy, why are we sending such a message of uncertainty in this situation? These are real jobs in a marketplace that is growing.

The middle class is going to grow from about 2.3 billion to about 5 billion people outside the United States over the next 15 years. We are going to see a doubling of the middle class. That is where products are going to be sold in emerging markets. Those emerging markets don't all have the financial tools to make those deals a reality, but the Export-Import Bank can help. They can help make sure a customer pays, that U.S. manufacturing wins, and that we keep our marketplace.

We hope all our colleagues will support this legislation. Time is running out. Know that this program has returned over $1 billion to the U.S. Treasury. That is a pretty good deal for us. If somebody on the other side has a better way of growing jobs and paying down the Federal deficit, I would like to hear it, because this is an important tool, and time is running out. I urge my colleagues to help support the Export-Import Bank.

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