Warner, Kaine chide Congress over Ex-Im Bank expiration

When their travels in Virginia take Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine to the working waterfront of Hampton Roads, both tend to make a pitch for a once obscure, now controversial federal agency called the Export-Import Bank.

Now, they've joined in a warning to colleagues on Capitol Hill that the scheduled expiration of the agency's authority to guarantee loans to help foreign companies buy U.S. goods could mean pain beyond the wharves of Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth.

The bank's authority to operate expires at midnight. Without congressional action, the Bank will no longer be able to conduct new transactions and will be forced to wind down its operations.

 “At a time when U.S. exporters and manufacturers are already suffering from substantial economic uncertainty in Europe, they should not be subjected to additional uncertainty manufactured by Washington," the two senators said.

The Export-Import Bank supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and has helped Virginians export hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods and services a year, the two said.

“The Export-Import Bank levels the playing field for U.S. exporters – many of them small businesses – by matching the financing that other governments provide to their exporters, and it does so at no cost to the taxpayer," they said.

Over the past two decades, the agency has helped reduce the federal deficit by generating nearly $7 billion more than its operating costs. Last year, the Export-Import Bank's loan guarantees supported $27.5 billion in exports and generated a $675 million boost to the federal budget.

“The Bank has operated for more than 80 years and has been reauthorized 16 times with bipartisan support under 13 different Presidents," the two said. "Congressional leadership should be ashamed for allowing this important job-creating tool to expire for the first time in its history.”