WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a candidate for speaker, is “strongly” discouraging lawmakers from signing on to a fellow Republican’s effort to force a vote to revive the U.S. Export-Import Bank, his spokesman said.
Rep. Stephen Fincher of Tennessee began the push Wednesday to reauthorize the bank, whose charter expired June 30. Supporters of Ex-Im say that not having the bank available puts U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage in the global market.
Fincher’s procedural maneuver is an attempt to bypass the usual process of moving legislation through a committee to the House floor. Other attempts to pass legislation to reauthorize the bank have been stymied by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, who opposes the bank.
“Because this petition would circumvent the committee process, McCarthy strongly discourages the participation of any such effort and remains firmly opposed to the Ex-Im bank,” Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy of California, said in an email Thursday.
Fincher’s effort sets up an intra-party dispute on the future of the 81-year-old bank, which provides loans, insurance and other support to help U.S. companies such as Boeing and General Electric make sales to overseas customers. Hensarling and other Republicans who oppose the bank say it mostly helps big corporations that don’t need government assistance.
Republican leadership is divided on the bank: outgoing Speaker John Boehner has said he worries the demise of Ex-Im will cause job losses — as some companies have already signaled — while McCarthy has called for an end to the institution.
The push to revive the bank comes amid the jostling to replace Boehner of Ohio, who announced on Sept. 25 that he would leave Congress at the end of October. McCarthy is the leading candidate to replace him. Republicans plan a leadership vote for Oct. 8.
Fincher would need support from 218 lawmakers to force a vote on reauthorizing the bank, which has been unable to approve new applications for assistance since its charter expired. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she supported the effort. “If Republicans have enough people on a discharge petition, then we might join in and go from there,” she told reporters at a news conference Thursday. “I’m optimistic from what I hear on their side.”
In an interview on Wednesday, Fincher said he was “very confident” he would succeed in getting the necessary backing from his Republican colleagues to force a vote on the bank. A spokesman for Boehner hasn’t responded to requests for comment about whether he will fight Fincher’s effort.
Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE has announced plans to shift hundreds of U.S. jobs to other countries, and directly tied the decision to the lapse of Ex-Im. The company said on Sept. 28 it would transfer 350 U.S. jobs to Canada and build a gas engine manufacturing plant there. That move would support GE’s efforts to access Canada’s export credit agency, the company said.
GE also said Sept. 15 it would move as many as 500 U.S. positions in its power generation business to Europe and China, and said 2,000 spots may be added overseas as a result of a U.K. financing deal and expansion in its aircraft-engine unit.
Boeing, Ex-Im’s biggest beneficiary, may also lose business due to the lapse in the bank’s charter. South Africa’s Comair Ltd. said in a Sept. 28 letter to Chicago-based Boeing that it may have to drop $1.1 billion in jet deliveries due to begin in October after struggling to line up financing without U.S. government assistance.
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