Mick Mulvaney

Mr. MULVANEY

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank the gentleman. I agree with most of what the ranking member on Financial Services just said with the exception of the conclusion. Everything that the Export-Import Bank does for small businesses actually is very productive. So here is the question: Why isn't the Export-Import Bank meeting its small-business requirement? Why hasn't it met it? For the last 3 years, it has not met its statutory requirement. One of the things we have not talked about yet, Madam Chairman, is that the amendment also puts a penalty on the Bank for not meeting that target. Right now it is the law that the Bank has to provide a certain level of services to the small-business community. It has failed to do that. As is so often the case, there is no penalty. This amendment would add the penalty. It helps small business, it expands the Export-Import Bank's small- business presence, and it actually puts some teeth in the law for a change. For that reason, I hope that we can support this amendment.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, a parliamentary inquiry before you start my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, you state No. 2. Is that Mulvaney No. 2 or Mulvaney No. 1?

Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have heard a couple arguments already--I guess we heard them before, Madam Chair--about how the place to do this was in committee. Fine. That could be. It doesn't make the amendments bad. It doesn't mean the principles contained in here are wrong. We didn't get a chance to do that in committee. You can blame whoever you want to for that. But the point of the matter is, this is where we are going to take up the amendments, and the fact we didn't do it 6 months ago does not make a good amendment a bad amendment. The amendments will stand on their own merit, as this one will, Madam Chair. What this one does is fairly simple. One of the things we have heard for the last several years about the Bank is that we need the Bank in order to meet foreign competition, that 1,700 other countries have export credit facilities, and if we don't have one of our own, we will unilaterally disarm and not be able to compete in the global marketplace. I happen to disagree with that. I happen to have some faith that American goods are good enough to compete overseas without the government subsidy. But that is fine. Let's take that for sake of discussion and say, all right, we don't want to unilaterally disarm. What this amendment does is makes sure that we don't. What this amendment does is simply says, look, if you want to use the Export-Import Bank, you have to be able to establish that you are actually competing with a foreign export credit facility. Fairly simple. It goes to the heart of what so many people say is why we have the Bank. So why not simply say, all right, look, we will have this thing until we can convince other countries to get out of this business, which we should be doing and, by the way, are obligated by law to be doing--not by target, but by law. We have had the responsibility to do that, Mr. Chairman, since 2012, yet this administration has refused to do that. But until we get a chance to enforce the law and actually get other countries to disarm, let's go ahead and not unilaterally disarm, and let's make sure, in order to use the Export-Import Bank, you have to be meeting specific and identifiable competition from other export credit facilities. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, how much time did each of us consume in our opening statements?

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert).

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, let's look at the facts. Yes, the Bank is required right now to look at this. They are not required to actually consider it. In fact, there are examples, factual examples, of the Bank looking into whether or not there were any countervailing efforts done by foreign credit facilities and just ignoring that. Yes, the law does require them to, but there are no teeth in the law. This amendment would allow us to do that. Another fact: in 2012, this body required the Export-Import Bank to start getting out of the business of competing with Export-Import Banks overseas in the airline industry. The law signed here, signed by the Senate, signed by the President was completely ignored by this administration. This amendment would fix that. Those are the facts, Mr. Chairman, from my friend from Tennessee. The facts are the administration is not following the law. We have seen that from time to time, haven't we? We have a chance to rectify that here this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, by passing this amendment and focusing the Bank on what everybody seems to agree is a very important core duty of competing with export credit facilities overseas, and I would recommend an approval of the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I go on to the next amendment, I want to very briefly put a closing point on the last discussion in responding to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck). Of course, the bankers love this. What does a banker love any less than a guaranteed loan? As for Miss Jenny's Pickles that we have heard about many, many times, I will point out to everybody that the last amendment was limited to loans that were greater than $10 million, not really, really small businesses. Those are exactly the type of private sector market loans we are looking for. In fact, if I wanted to sum up in one sentence as to why you should support the last amendment, it would be: Can't we at least, maybe, give the private sector a chance first on loans of this size? There is another opportunity to do that now, Mr. Chairman, on this next amendment, which would prohibit the Export-Import Bank from doing any business with companies that are owned or have other ties to sovereign wealth funds in excess of $100 billion. I will give you a classic example of how the Export-Import Bank is being used right now. The Government of Indonesia was seeking bids for a power plant. One of the American manufacturers was in the bidding, and the bid request came in as follows and said that the buyer shall finance the project by using 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt. An export credit agency shall cover at least 50 percent of the debt financing. Bidders shall propose a prospective lender who will cover the loan without guarantee from the Government of Indonesia and without collateral. What was this, Mr. Chairman? This was a foreign government saying: We would like to buy your stuff, and if we don't pay you, we would like your taxpayers to be on the hook. That is exactly what this is, and that is why so many of these international requests for proposals have exactly that requirement in it. These foreign governments don't want to be responsible if they can't pay. They want this government to be responsible if they can't pay, and that means they want our taxpayers to be responsible if they can't pay. We figured let's go ahead and let that be, Mr. Chairman, for a little bit; but if you have a sovereign wealth fund in excess of $100 billion, then maybe you should be on the hook. Maybe our taxpayers should not be. Maybe you are big enough to actually guarantee your own debts. It seems like a fairly reasonable thing that we should be sitting here, trying to figure out ways to protect the taxpayer. So I encourage folks to support this particular amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, I inquire as to the amount of time remaining.

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).