Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1029, EPA Science Reform Act of 2015, and Providing for Consideration for H.R. 1030, Secret Science Reform Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HECK of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the previous question in order that I might support Mr. Hastings' effort to offer the amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.

Here is why. The Export-Import Bank is a job-creating machine. Over the last 5 years, it has created--by good and scientifically-based estimates--about 1.2 million well-paying jobs, good-paying jobs, the kind of jobs that you can have and buy a home and send your kids to college and that touch every congressional district in the State. The
Export-Import Bank is a job-creating machine.

The Export-Import Bank is also a deficit-reducing machine. Not one red penny in the last generation has been used to subsidize it. In fact, $7 billion has been transferred to the Treasury to reduce the deficit. It was $1 billion 2 years ago, $675 million last year, and a projected $8 million this year. The Export-Import Bank is a deficit-reducing machine.

In addition to that, it is a superperformer, by any private sector measure. I come from the private sector. How they conduct their business is the envy of the financial services sector.

It has a default rate of less than--you are hearing this correctly--.175 percent and a collection rate over 50 percent. It is a superperformer; yet the Export-Import Bank goes away in exactly 105 days--poof, gone, vanished.

The gentleman from Texas asked a very good question, a fair question: Why now? Well, the answer is: The clock is ticking, tick tock, tick tock. There are 105 days to go; yet the committee of jurisdiction has not had a hearing, has not scheduled a markup, and has issued no notice for either.

In fact, when we had the committee oversight plan before us, what did the committee chair do? He opposed a neutrally worded amendment that said, Let's take up the Export-Import Bank and subject it to regular order. That is all. Let's go through regular order.

There is no intent to take up the Export-Import Bank--no hearing, no markup, a rejection of regular order. That is why now.

It has been said, erroneously, that the Export-Import Bank primarily benefits Big Business--principally, aerospace. That is so wrong on so many levels, I cannot exaggerate it.

To begin with, 90 percent of the transactions of the Export-Import Bank go to small business, but it also fails to understand something, this argument coming from people who are supposed to understand the private sector.

Take a company like Boeing, a pride of America. Please remember, ladies and gentlemen, there are only two companies on the face of the planet that produce large airplanes, and America has but one of them. Do you know what they rely on? 12,000 businesses in their supply chain, many of which are small.

Here is the fact. Last week, I was home in a town called Puyallup, which most people can't even pronounce. It is a beautiful community of 38,000 people. It is not anywhere near Renton or Everett, where the airplanes are manufactured.

Do you know how many small businesses there are in the confines of the city limits of Puyallup that supply the aerospace industry and benefit from the Export-Import Bank? Seventeen, small businesses everywhere, but it is also stand-alone small businesses.

Another in my district is called Pexco. They produce traffic cones and the like that they sell internationally. Ex-Im financed $2.3 million of their product last year.

I had a couple in my office just a few weeks ago from eastern Washington. I don't even represent them. They have agricultural products, mint extract and mint oil. Before they began working with the Export-Import Bank, one-third of their gross revenues were in exports. They began working with them, and their domestic side has grown. Now,
it is two-thirds.

I had another agricultural interest in the office. They said that 5 years ago, 5 percent of their business was export. They did not use the Export-Import Bank. They began using it, and it is now 50 percent.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, let us remember that there are 60 developed nations on the face of the Earth, and if we allow our Export-Import Bank to expire, we will be the only one on the face of the planet without an export credit authority.

Let me tell you, China is rubbing their hands in anticipation because, in addition to Airbus--remember, we are 2 to 8 years away from China manufacturing a wide-body airplane. They can't wait for the Export-Import Bank to expire so they can capture market share.

Why in the world would we unilaterally disarm? Remember this: We are only 5 percent of the world's population.

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Mr. HECK of Washington. If we want to keep and grow our middle class, we need to learn how to sell into the growing middle class of the rest of the world, and that requires the Export-Import Bank.

The Export-Import Bank is a job-creating machine, a deficit-reducing machine, and a superperformer. The votes are here. It is 190, by the way--not 189--and 58 on that side of the aisle.

There is a part of me, a voice in me that wants to shout: Let my people go. The votes are here. It is not scheduled for a hearing. Let Mr. Hastings offer his amendment. Let's reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.

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