Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 39

Floor Speech

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Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, you wouldn't think that I would have to keep coming here to talk about how it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to grow American manufacturing jobs, keep manufacturing jobs, and make sure American manufacturers are competitive in the global economy.

When young people come to my office to talk about the future, the one thing I tell them--and it is critical that you never forget this--is that 95 percent of all potential consumers in the world today do not live in this country. If you want to be successful in the future, you are going to have to be competitive and you are going to have to be innovative and do everything you can to grab that market share. That is how our economy is going to grow. It is what brings new wealth to our country, and that gives us the opportunity to advance an economic and political agenda that will move our country and the values we have in this democracy forward.

What do we do? We stall out by saying that even though 90 or 80 other countries have export credit agencies that can assist in financing those manufacturing jobs and those purchases, we, the United States of America, are going to tie the hands of a 70-year-old institution that has functioned incredibly well to bring jobs and wealth to our country. We are going to do it not because the will of this body and this Congress hasn't been expressed--in fact, it is the opposite.

When we reauthorized the Export-Import Bank, we were able to secure almost 70 percent of the Senate and over 70 percent of the House. It sounds like a mandate to me. It sounds like an understanding that most of the people in this institution understand the importance of a credit export agency. Guess what. We have now told our export agency: We are not going to give you the structure or the power to function. If you want to do a deal that is more than $10 million, we won't be there. We will not be there to provide assistance or guarantees, and we will not be able to help American businesses be competitive internationally.

A lot of people will say: Well, those are just the big guys. Those are the Boeings, GEs, and Caterpillars of the world.

That totally ignores how American manufacturing is done. American manufacturing is done in small shops all across this country, small businesses that have been a part of that supply chain for decades and have relied on the corporate innovation and selling of large aircraft, large construction equipment, and large gas turbines and generators.

Do you know what is going to happen when those manufacturers or assemblers do not have export financing? Guess what they do. They say: I have to move someplace else where I can get it. If I am going to sell my products in the global market, I have to be able to qualify for export financing, and that means I have to move those manufacturing jobs--manufacturing gas turbines or manufacturing small parts--to France, where there is an environment and government that understands the importance of providing this important trade resource.

As we sit here today collectively worried about the middle class and America's competitiveness in manufacturing and trying to grow our global presence and our global exports, we take one critical piece of trade infrastructure and say: Can't use it. It is not because people here don't think so or because the American people don't think that is a good idea.

When you talk about this with the American people, they say: That is crazy. Something that returns dollars to the Treasury and provides this resource to grow American jobs and we are not going to do it?

And I say: We are not going to do it because the conservative think tanks in Washington, DC, whose influence is outsized from their ideas and political support, decided it is not a good idea--whether it is Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation, CATO, or whichever one comes forward and says it is not a good idea.

We are talking about American jobs and American manufacturing, and we can do something about it with a simple act, which in this CR we have to do because we can't move on the nominee who would give us a quorum on the Ex-Im Bank, and that is what is holding us up. The Ex-Im Bank operates like a lot of banks. It has a board of directors. When that board of directors doesn't have a quorum, they can't make decisions on credits over $10 million. We have $20 billion worth of business we could be doing internationally that is held up by the lack of a quorum.

I get it. We are about regular order, right? I don't know what regular order says about not sending a nominee out of a committee so we can vote him up or down. This is the argument I get: We have never had a debate. Really? I can't tell you how many times I have stood in this spot debating the Ex-Im Bank and the values and importance of the Export-Import Bank, but they say we haven't had a debate.

I said: If you want to have a debate, move the nominee to the floor and let's have a debate. You don't want to have a debate because you could lose.

They don't want to have a debate because they will, in fact, lose in this body if that nominee comes up.

I recognize there is support for regular order, if we can call it that. To me, regular order means getting your job done. It doesn't mean stalling out and stopping American innovation and American exports.

Let's say we go to regular order. Now we are working on trying to change the quorum rule so that people can actually make a decision and move these credits forward and get Americans back to work and get us back to exporting.

Where are we right now? Well, we read in the press that once again the outsized--for their political support--interest groups in this town are saying: Don't do it.

American manufacturing is hurt, and American manufacturing is calling and saying: We must do it, and we can't wait until the end of the year. We can't wait to do this credit.

The last time I came here, I brought what I call a payloader, a front-end loader. I brought a loader here, and I talked about the manufacturing of that piece of equipment in my State. I talked about a huge credit and a huge deal we could do that involved international credit with a dealership, which would include manufacturers in Iowa, Kansas, and North Dakota--all American jobs. It obviously didn't influence anyone or we would have gotten it done.

So now I am asking that everybody who says they are for American workers, American progress, and American exports to call leadership. This is something we have to do. It is bipartisan and it is nonpartisan. I know the Democrats have put it on their list of asks, but it shouldn't be a Democratic-Republican issue. I have good allies on the other side of the aisle who want to move this forward as well. When we can't move a piece of legislation and an idea that has supermajority support, that is when the American public says: Guess what. This is a broken institution. This is an institution that doesn't function for the American people.

When American jobs and when American workers get pink slips because we aren't doing our job here, that is a sad day for the Congress, and it is a sad day for what we do here.

Standing on principle is one thing. You fought the fight and the Bank was reauthorized. Let's get the Bank fully functioning. Let's get a resolution and a provision in the continuing resolution that actually provides for reviving and moving the Ex-Im Bank forward.

As I have said before in this very spot, I don't go to bed worried about the CEOs of major companies. They have options. They can move those jobs overseas. They will function just fine. They are a part of multinational businesses. I go to bed worried about that worker who has to come home with a pink slip because there is no longer the opportunity to sell what is being manufactured. Don't think that is not happening right now in the United States of America because it is. Those pink slips are on us. Those pink slips are happening because we have an institution that does not function in a majority fashion and for the people of this country and certainly for the middle class.

Everybody who says they are for the middle class, why don't we just quit engaging in lipservice and start taking action that tells American manufacturers, American workers, and American business that we are going to stand with them as they innovate, export, and grow the economy of this country?

When everybody says our economic growth is sluggish, I look at them and say: Do you know how we can amp it up? By exporting. Do you know why we are not exporting $20 billion worth of goods in this country? Because we do not have a fully functioning Ex-Im Bank.

There is no way anyone could look at this logically and say this is good public policy.

I couldn't be more distraught or more sympathetic about what is happening to American workers. It is time we all work together.

I know the Presiding Officer is very interested in moving the Bank forward as well, and we all need to make sure we get this problem taken care of before we leave in October.

With that, I yield my time.

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