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House Financial Service Committee members indicated that they are working to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank while also seeking to modernize the institution (POLITICO Pro, subscription).

Bipartisan agreement: Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH)—the chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions, which oversees the bank—said he intends to target reauthorization and modernization at the same time.

• “You never know what the future holds, and this is one of the things that is bipartisan, and you’d hate to see a situation where you lose that momentum,” he told POLITICO following an EX-IM Bank oversight hearing. “I think the moment is good for a truly bipartisan reauthorization, and I think we should seize it.”
• Meanwhile, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), the ranking member of the subcommittee, also mentioned the importance of improving the bank. During the hearing, she said she “look[s] forward to working with [her] colleagues across the aisle to identify opportunities to strengthen the bank and sharpen it as a tool to promote U.S. leadership.”

The big picture: The EX-IM Bank must be reauthorized by the end of this year.

• A longtime crucial support for manufacturers, it has begun to play an important role in Trump administration policy, including in the planned creation of a critical minerals stockpile.

NAM in action: The NAM helped lead the charge to reauthorize the bank in 2019, and this week urged policymakers to renew it for 10 years to provide manufacturers with greater stability and certainty. Its other recommendations to improve the bank, which supported an estimated $10 billion in U.S. export sales last year, include the following:

• Bolstering the bank’s China and Transformational Exports Program and Make More in America initiative, which have opened up opportunities for manufacturers in a wide array of sectors, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, renewable energy and many more  
• Modernizing the default cap to prevent the EX-IM Bank from being overly risk-averse and reluctant to authorize larger deals to outcompete foreign credit agencies for sales overseas
• Adding procedures to the EX-IM Bank’s charter to overcome lapses in the quorum of the board of director—which hampers the bank’s ability to make deals of more than $25 million and harms manufacturers
• Providing the EX-IM Bank with the flexibility to recruit and retain specialized talent, who can process complex deals in fields like artificial intelligence and nuclear energy

The last word: “EX-IM plays a pivotal role in ensuring the global competitiveness of manufacturers in the U.S.,” said NAM Senior Director of International Policy Anne Ruhle Collett.