It’s not that surprising that the U.S. House finally passed legislation to take the Export-Import Bank out of the mothballs it was placed in back in June when its authorization expired. The support was there all along.

The bank, which guarantees loans between American manufacturers and foreign buyers, was first created in 1934 and has been reauthorized 16 times since then with little opposition from Congress or the White House. It’s a tool that promotes exports of the products and services produced by companies large and small that support family-wage jobs in Snohomish County and the nation. Between 2007 and this year, the Ex-Im Bank supported more than $130 billion in exports from 227 Washington state businesses. The bank is self-supporting and generates income for the U.S. Treasury, earning more than $3.4 billion for the government since 2005.

The legislation to reauthorize the bank now awaits a vote in the Senate, where a previous bill that linked it with the reauthorization of the federal highway fund passed 67-29, a margin of more than two-thirds support. The margin in the House on Tuesday was even larger, 313-118, nearly 3-to-1.

But even with that overwhelming support in the House and Senate, the Ex-Im Bank has been shuttered since June 30, meaning a loss in potential sales for many businesses and threats by Boeing and other large manufacturers to move jobs overseas where foreign nations provide the loan guarantees. Why?

Because conservatives, such as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California; Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas; and Speaker-nominee Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, oppose it and have blocked votes in the House.

With the support of nearly all Democrats and 127 Republicans, representatives went around Republican leadership with a little-used procedure, known as a discharge petition, and pushed for a vote over the objections of McCarthy, Hensarling, Ryan and others in the more conservative caucuses.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, also an opponent of the bank, says the legislation won’t move forward there unless it is again tied to the transportation bill.

Washington’s Democratic senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both have voted for and spoken in support of the Ex-Im Bank. Cantwell, in a floor speech Wednesday, said the bank’s closing has caused the loss of thousands of jobs. And more could disappear with each passing day.

Cantwell called for immediate action in the Senate to reauthorize the bank, whether in a stand-alone vote or as part of the transportation bill.

“All you’re doing by killing the Export-Import Bank is enabling some other manufacturer in Europe or Asia or South America to compete with our manufacturers on an uneven playing field,” Cantwell said.

She continued: “To allow a minority to thwart what is such an essential tool has been a mistake.”

Leadership or not, why should a small number of congressional members be able to gum up the works and prevent votes on legislation that a majority supports? And what other pieces of legislation, supported by a majority in both houses, are being kept from passage?

It took the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to break a logjam in September and prevent a government shutdown. Now, with a bipartisan budget deal stuck by the White House and leaders in the House and Senate, some conservatives again threatened to risk shutdown to kill the deal. Likewise, a vote to raise the debt ceiling still is being challenged. And Congress must act on the transportation bill before it expires Nov. 20.

We’re also waiting for a vote on the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expired in August. The fund, in effect for 50 years, uses royalties from offshore oil drilling to fund parks and public land acquisitions and development.

All of the above — budgets, debt ceiling, transportation and parks funding — are bills that past Congresses have been able to approve with general agreement.

Why not now?