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Import-Export Bank changes are needed

Members of Congress are being pressured by President Barack Obama to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank – but they should refuse to do so on the White House’s terms.

Earlier this summer, controversy over the bank caused reauthorization legislation to lapse. For the first time in its 81-year-history, the Ex-Im, as it is called in Washington, is effectively out of business.

Insisting “every other advanced country has a program like this,” Obama demanded Wednesday the bank be revived.

But the agency, which uses billions of dollars a year to underwrite loans foreign companies use to buy U.S. goods and services, has been controversial – in part because of Obama’s actions.

One complaint some critics have pre-dates this administration. It is that the bank may do a good job helping big U.S. corporations make sales overseas, but it is of little help to small businesses. And, it has been pointed out, by helping a few major corporations, the bank in effect harms their U.S. competitors.

But Obama took politicization of the bank to a new level. The White House ordered it to stop securing loans foreign companies sought to build coal-fired power plants abroad. Obama’s action was a blatant attempt to harm the U.S. coal industry.

A reauthorization bill introduced by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., would require the bank to resume coal-related projects. It has wide bipartisan support.

Reforms in that regard, as well as those aimed at broadening the bank’s assistance to U.S. companies, should be a no-negotiation bottom line for lawmakers. Without those changes, Congress should not even consider bowing to the president’s demand.

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