McConnell nukes House Ex-Im Bank bill in rebuke to Waters

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is refusing to take up House legislation that would extend the operations of the beleaguered Export-Import Bank for the next decade and is instead inclined to keep the agency running as part of an upcoming government funding bill, he told POLITICO.

The agency, which guarantees loans for U.S. goods sold abroad, is set to see its charter expire after Nov. 21 if Congress doesn't act.

The House on Friday is planning to pass legislation by Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) that would reauthorize the agency for 10 years. But Republicans are threatening to oppose it after Waters refused to accept changes they wanted to see made to the bank.

So McConnell is now eyeing stopgap government funding legislation, which must also be passed next week, as the vehicle to maintain the Ex-Im Bank's operations. The agency was previously included in the so-called continuing resolution that Congress passed in September to avoid a government shutdown at that time.

"We're not going to pass the House bill," McConnell said in a brief interview. "We do want to extend Ex-Im. A logical place to do that would be on the CR."

The conflict over the House legislation is just the latest bout of political uncertainty that the agency has experienced. For the last few years, House and Senate Republicans succeeded in curtailing the bank's financing capabilities, which some conservatives complained amounted to "crony capitalism."

The agency recently returned to full steam, thanks in part to a push by Trump administration officials who argued that it would help the U.S. compete with China.

In a statement of administration policy on the House bill, White House officials said they would recommend a veto because the legislation was not the right "bipartisan, bicameral approach" to deliver a long-term reauthorization.