U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has forwarded correspondence to Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) officials, expressing concerns regarding EXIM’s Domestic Financing Program proposal.
Toomey, Senate Banking Committee ranking member, maintains the proposed launch of an effort to finance domestic manufacturing and infrastructure would improperly expand the bank’s reach.
“Last year, the Biden administration tasked EXIM with developing a program to purportedly create or expand manufacturing facilities and infrastructure projects in the United States,” Toomey wrote in the letter to EXIM President and Chair Reta Jo Lewis. “EXIM issued a vague notice in the Federal Register two days before Christmas about the potential parameters of this program, giving the public less than one month to provide initial feedback. And just 15 days following your confirmation by the Senate, you announced that EXIM’s Board of Directors would vote this spring on whether to adopt this new Domestic Financing Program. The bank has not published a framework for this unprecedented program, nor has it subjected such a framework to a public notice-and-comment rulemaking process.”
Toomey has requested EXIM not present the program for consideration by EXIM’s Board of Directors without publishing a comprehensive framework for the program and receiving public comment.
“I was troubled to learn that the new Domestic Financing Program would provide taxpayer support to domestic manufacturing facilities and infrastructure projects so long as there is an expectation that some arbitrary portion of goods produced will be exported,” Toomey concluded. “This requirement can even be satisfied by indirect exports. That is, an EXIM-financed manufacturer does not actually have to export anything, so long as its customers do. This is worse than mission creep.”
Toomey has also requested EXIM respond to a series of written questions regarding the Domestic Financing Program no later than March 23, 2022.