In an effort to expand taxpayer-backed financing for foreign companies making $10-million-plus purchases of U.S.-made goods such as Boeing jets, Obama’s White House is fighting to stick a crafty provision into the fiscal-year-end spending bill.
Congress this week is taking up a continuing resolution, a spending bill to fund the government past Sept. 30, when current appropriations expire. The Obama White House has requested an unrelated policy rider be stuck in the bill. The rider would allow taxpayer backstops of 8-figure export deals.
The Export-Import Bank is a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. exports by providing taxpayer-backed financing to foreign buyers. Ex-Im may not extend any loans or loan guarantees greater than $10 million without approval by the board. Ex-Im’s board currently has only 2 members, thus lacking a quorum. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is bottling up the latest nominee, Mark McWatters.
So the administration has asked for a provision in the CR that would lessen the quorum requirements, thus allowing the quorum-less board to approve $10-million deals and above. Senate Democrats support the measure. Republicans are divided. Fifty conservative and free-market groups have signed a letter imploring GOP leaders in Congress not to include the administration’s measure.
Lobbying reports show the Aerospace Industries Association of America lobbying on the quorum issue. In recent years, a majority of Ex-Im’s large loan guarantee dollars went to subsidize Boeing exports. Asia-based bank HSBC has also lobbied to loosen the “quorum structure” of Ex-Im, according to lobbying filings. HSBC, like other large international banks, receives taxpayer guarantees from Ex-Im for its loans to foreign buyers of U.S. goods.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
