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 Ex-Im's authority to make new loans or write new credit and trade
guarantees will expire at midnight on June 30, leaving many U.S.
exporters scrambling to find alternative financing or withdraw from
proposed deals.
The bank's chairman, Fred Hochberg, said that the charter would
expire after 81 years largely free of controversy.
"It's hard to believe Ex-Im is going to lapse. But we are," Hochberg
said in a speech to a trade forum on Thursday.
Conservative Republicans and influential conservative think-tanks
have waged a long campaign to shut down the trade lender, arguing
that it constitutes "welfare" to giant, politically connected
corporations.
"This is a small step toward renewing a competitive free-market
economy and arresting the rise of the progressive welfare state and
the cronyism connected to it," Representative Jeb Hensarling, a
Republican of Texas who is the leader of the crusade, said in a
statement.
 Hensarling, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has
declined to move a bill to renew Ex-Im's charter, leaving no
immediate legislative vehicle.
Ex-Im will not close its doors on July 1. Its 450 employees will
keep coming to work because its $106.3 million administrative
budget, paid from fees it collects, is authorized through Sept. 30,
the end of the fiscal year.
Ex-Im spokeswoman Nicole Woods said employees would perform
monitoring and compliance work on the bank's $112 billion in
outstanding loans and guarantee commitments, and process trade
insurance claims. But they will not be able to review new
applications or solicit potential new business.
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Meanwhile, the bank's proponents still hope to pass renewal
legislation with some reforms in July. The main hope for many
Democrats and moderate Republicans is to attach this to a
transportation funding bill with a July 31 deadline for passage.
"We've been expecting that it's going to get attached to something
over in the Senate and come over to the House," House Speaker John
Boehner, who has traditionally backed Ex-Im in the past, told
reporters. "When it does, we'll deal with it. Until then, we won't."
A coalition of business groups and companies lobbying to keep Ex-Im
open said Congress had "failed" by not acting, adding, "Each
additional day of inaction increases the damage to American
competitiveness and is a boon to foreign competitors."
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie
Adler)
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