House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said he wants to come up with a legislative plan to wind down the Export-Import Bank, keeping it alive at least temporarily, telling reporters “thousands of jobs would be lost” if it is allowed to simply expire.
The bank has been on the verge of extinction, thanks to opposition from key GOP leaders, including House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Under Hensarling’s leadership, the bank appeared poised to soon lose its charter without action from Congress.
But Boehner, R-Ohio, said he wants Hensarling to “come up with a plan” to wind down the bank, which currently operates under a charter set to expire on June 30. He doesn’t want the bank to just abruptly go out of existence in July.
“He will support any plan that Chairman Hensarling can get through his committee that reforms the bank or winds it down,” an aide told the Washington Examiner. “What he doesn’t think is responsible is just to let it expire.”
Boehner said that if the House did not take up their own plan, the Senate would act first, “and then what?”
Conservative Republican and libertarian-minded lawmakers and outside conservative groups have increasingly called for an end to the bank, declaring it a form of corporate welfare shouldered by taxpayers for the benefit of big companies like General Electric and Boeing. The bank has also been mired in corruption scandals.
Hensarling is a chief proponent of letting the bank expire, and his committee is in charge of whether to reauthorize it.
But backers believe the bank supports thousands of U.S. jobs that would be lost if the bank is extinguished.
The federal agency has existed since the 1930s and has historically been reauthorized by Congress without much controversy.
