Announcement by the Acting Chair

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PERRY. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, the Export-Import Bank has a portfolio annually somewhere to the tune of $120 billion, I think under the new proposal; $130 billion. Fifty-one percent, Madam Chairman--fully 51 percent--goes to 10 companies in our country--$120 billion. Isn't that fantastic?

Whether you support or oppose the Ex-Im, everyone can welcome the fact that the reauthorization we are considering today raises the Bank's small-business target 25 percent. Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate have called on the Bank to focus on small-business needs more effectively.

This amendment keeps that 25 percent small-business target in the underlying bill. It doesn't change that, but it would then raise the target by 5 percent per year through the reauthorization period.

Madam Chair, $120 billion a year, $130 billion a year, 51 percent goes to 10 companies in the United States. You think: Wouldn't it be great if the town that I represent, the towns that Members in this House represent, could be one of those 10 companies? It is not to disparage any of those 10 companies. We are happy that they are in the United States, and we are happy that they are profitable.

But these small businesses that are trying to get a leg up, that want to employ their neighbors and that want to enrich their communities would like a shot as well. But they don't have legions of lobbyists, and they don't have big staffs to go to the Ex-Im Bank and plead their case.

What that results in is 98 percent of small businesses, 98 percent of trade across our country, is conducted without any help at all of the Export-Import Bank. Wouldn't it be great if we could remedy that? And wouldn't it be easy if we could remedy that?

Madam Chairman, that is what the amendment that I propose does. With this amendment, Ex-Im still has the flexibility to devote most of its assistance--now 51 percent to 10 companies in the country--to large businesses. The big ones will still have the same access to Ex-Im. All this does is requires the Ex-Im to take small businesses more seriously.

Yes, it is a little more work. They don't have the lobbyists and the staff that all these big, multinational companies do. But isn't it worth it in our small towns to help them and to assist them?

We know the Bank is more than capable of doing this. In fiscal year 2014, 25 percent of its authorization went to small businesses. So the Bank easily met its target. But in the 3 years prior to that, Ex-Im ignored--literally ignored--the small-business target that Congress enacted and required of them.

Under this amendment, Ex-Im has to ensure that it meets its small-business target. It has to. If we want to help small businesses like the one in your town, the one in the towns that you represent, we have to make sure that it does that. We need to keep an ambitious target that Ex-Im can meet and encourage the Bank to reach it.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PERRY. Madam Chair, the fact is that all the reforms that the kind gentleman just spoke of are not going to happen. None of that is happening. The Senate threw that in the trash.

So what we have is an Export-Import Bank that has refused to comply with the law over and over again. The fact also remains that nobody here is trying to kill the Export-Import Bank. We aren't. This is the process by which we make it better.

Whether or not you sell a jar of pickles or whether you sell an airplane, $120 billion, 51 percent of it goes to 10 companies. You figure it out. You figure out what that looks like to you. To me, it looks like cronyism. That is what it looks like to me.

I come from York, Pennsylvania, and instead of creating thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs, we would like to create tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs by requiring the Bank that is encumbering the United States taxpayer to work with small businesses, the businesses in our town, instead of just going to the big businesses in this country.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source