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Nuclear Energy, Ex-Im Bank and the Congressional Hearing

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At 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning the House Financial Services Committee will be holding a hearing of the reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The chairman of the committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), is a long-time opponent of the Bank and the hearing will be stacked (mostly) with witnesses who agree.

To get the other side of the story, we've compiled a number of links and resources for you to consider. Earlier this year, our own Ted Jones laid out the reasons why NEI supports reauthorization of the bank, listing his top 5 reasons why exporters continue to need the critical help it provides in international markets. On Monday, NEI, along with over 800 other organizations, sent an open letter to the U.S. Congress urging them to support reauthorization of the bank. Here's an excerpt on why we believe eliminating the Ex-Im Bank amounts to unilateral disarmament in international trade:
Failure to reauthorize Ex-Im would amount to unilateral disarmament in the face of other governments’ far more aggressive export credit programs, which have provided their own exporters with an estimated $1 trillion in financing support in recent years. Export credit agencies in China, France, Germany, Brazil, and Korea have provided significantly more support for their exporters than Ex-Im has provided to U.S. exporters — in some cases, more than seven times what Ex-Im Bank has provided on an annual basis.
Though he won't be at tomorrow's hearing, NEI's Marv Fertel submitted his testimony for the record:
Ex-Im Bank is one of the most important tools available to promote U.S. nuclear energy exports to the large and growing global market. When a U.S. supplier wins a major nuclear power plant tender, it establishes relationships that can endure for decades through the supply of fuel, equipment and services.

Beyond the substantial benefits to U.S. exports and job creation, U.S. nuclear exports promote nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation. Further, they enable U.S. partners to protect their energy security interests through diversification of energy technologies and supply relationships.

With Ex-Im Bank support, U.S. nuclear energy supplies can compete for and win key international nuclear energy tenders, and advance multiple U.S. national interests.
One of the biggest distortions about the Ex-Im Bank is that it only benefits large businesses. That's not true. One business that does benefit from the bank's services is Precision Custom Components (PCC) of York, Pennsylvania. With just 200 employees, PCC depends on Ex-Im to help support its activities in export markets all over the world:



We'll be tweeting about the hearing and the bank all day long. Please follow our activities on Twitter with the #ExIm4Jobs hashtag. In the meantime, here are some other resources for you to review during the debate about the future of the Bank.

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