Trade Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, once again we are down on the floor of the Senate, begging, pleading, and trying to get anyone to listen to our pleas to once again open the Export-Import Bank. As we look at the consequences of having closed--for the last 3 1/2 months--the Export-Import Bank, it becomes readily apparent every day and every hour that we are losing American manufacturing jobs and we are stressing small businesses that have a strong history of reliance on the Export-Import Bank, and that we are, in fact, not only not helping American business, but we are hurting American manufacturers in this country.

Why would we do that? Why would we wait one more day? Before the charter expired on the Export-Import Bank, we were told that the reason why--even though we had 64 votes in the Senate for the Ex-Im Bank--we couldn't possibly get this done was because the House of Representatives would not take this up. The House of Representatives would not move on the Ex-Im Bank, and, in fact, if it came to the floor, it was doubtful that we would actually get a vote that was favorable to the Ex-Im Bank. Well, a funny thing happened when we looked at the reality of where the House of Representatives is today.

When we counted the votes this week for the Ex-Im Bank, guess what; over 70 percent of the House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. And probably even more remarkable, a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank.

Now, you might wonder: What changed? What happened? How could we possibly have been so wrong?

Well, let me tell you that no one in their right mind in the business community ever believed that we would let the Ex-Im Bank charter expire, and so everybody assumed that we would do the right thing here--that the charter would go on and that this would happen. Guess what happened. When we shut down the Ex-Im Bank and people weren't able to approach the Ex-Im Bank to get credit guarantees to do the work of manufacturing and exporting, all of a sudden, those small business men and women and those employees of those institutions picked up their phones and started calling their Members of Congress. When they called their Members of Congress, that is when we saw action. That is when we saw things moving in a direction that actually supports American manufacturing.

This is an institution that has been reauthorized many times. This is an institution that has been in existence for decades. It is an institution that is in competition with dozens--in fact, about 80 or 90 export credit agencies are run by other countries--of credit agencies every day. They are competing against those same agencies.

What we have now is unilateral disarmament. Imagine this: American manufacturers--longstanding manufacturers--are actually considering moving their manufacturing facilities offshore so that they can compete for this export business. We can't wait another minute. We can't wait another day. We can't wait for another opportunity to present itself. We have to do this now.

I understand and know that I am new to this institution. But most times when you have supermajorities in support of something, it shouldn't be that hard to get it done, and we know the President will sign it.

I am always a little shocked when people say: Well, you know, we still can't get that done because we need to find a vehicle. And I think: Well, what does that mean when you actually introduce a bill and the bill itself is sitting at the desk and there is an opportunity not to try to attach something so that somebody can hide their vote or not to try to attach it to something because you might be able to leverage another idea on there but to actually move this bill forward?

We don't need to look for a vehicle. We don't need to look for another opportunity to advance the Ex-Im Bank. Guess what we need. We need to bring this bill to the floor right now. We need to ask our colleagues to engage in what we should be doing here, which is debate and legislation on the floor of the Senate. We need to resolve this issue and wrap it up.

When we started this journey, we were told the Ex-Im Bank was in need of reform. In a very bipartisan way, my office sat down with Senator Kirk's office, joined by Senator Blunt, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Manchin, and Senator Donnelly and said: What do we need to do to make the Ex-Im Bank better? What do we need to do to make the Ex-Im Bank more accessible and more accountable?

We negotiated something that is rare here, which is a bipartisan bill, the Kirk-Heitkamp Ex-Im Bank reauthorization bill. That bill has been the vehicle and the kind of blueprint for how we are going to move forward. In fact, when the House did their discharge petition, they discharged the bill that is, in fact, the Kirk-Heitkamp bill. There is nothing in there where we have to balance this or somehow reconcile a House version and a Senate version.

We can get this done today. We can move this forward. We can send the message to the rest of the world that the Ex-Im Bank and American manufacturers are open for business. It makes absolutely no sense for us to wait any longer and in any way delay the movement of the Ex-Im Bank.

I yield the floor.

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Ms. HEITKAMP. We have now had this experience of 3 1/2 months--really 4 months because we are at the end of October--with no opportunity for a small business to actually look at how they could grow that small business. We know we have lost jobs all across America in States where they are economically challenged. Opportunities are there. We know that the large institutions, the large manufacturers in our country, some of which are in Senator Cantwell's State, rely on this small business chain of businesses, and those are the businesses that have been hit the hardest.

If we wait, again, for another promise that we are going to put it on another vehicle--how much more inactivity, how much more disruption to these small businesses can these small supply chains have given their economics? Isn't it true that a small business is much more challenged by a day's delay in opening up the Ex-Im Bank than a large corporation?

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