Future Infrastructure budget cuts are inevitable – We must locate other means of investment to rebuild and innovate
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- Democrats will say no – they are wedded to their own I-bank concept
- Solvency Turn- High Speed Rail is a go green initiative, EX-import will say no
- Tax-payers check, Counter-plan can’t solve
- Counter-plan will expect major delays
CP: Export-ImportExport-Import is organizationally is overburdened – only an external bank can solveScott Thomasson 2011, Economic and Domestic Policy Director Progressive Policy Institute Testimony of Scott Thomasson Progressive Policy Institute October 12, 2011, United States House Of Representatives Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit “National Infrastructure Bank: More Bureaucracy and Red Tape” October 12, 2011, http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/file/TestimonyHighways/2011-10-12%20Thomasson.pdf Myth #7: We don’t need a separate infrastructure bank, because we can simply expand existing programs like TIFIA or the Export-Import Bank. Reality: Both TIFIA and the Export-Import (“Ex-Im”) Bank are well-run programs that are effective in achieving the specific missions they are charged with. There are structural similarities between AIFA and both TIFIA and Ex-Im that make the idea of transforming either program to act like an infrastructure bank very interesting on paper and perhaps worth exploring more. However, the organization and governance of the infrastructure bank would be materially different from TIFIA, and its mission and expertise would not necessarily be compatible with the Ex-Im Bank. TIFIA is already oversubscribed with only a handful of staff to process loan applications. Some people familiar with the workings of the TIFIA program believe it will not be able to handle the additional workload that will accompany recent proposals to “super-size” its budget authority. Throwing more money at the TIFIA program without an enhanced organizational structure will run the same risks of questionable underwriting decisions that the Solyndra critics allege of the DOE loan guarantee program. An independent and professionally staffed infrastructure bank is the best response to the increasing need for expansion and better management of federal credit programs. A properly structured national bank achieves this first and foremost by replacing politically driven decision making with a more transparent and merit-based evaluation process overseen by a bipartisan and expert board of directors. This feature of the bank becomes even more important as the federal government moves toward financing larger, big-ticket projects that are beyond the scale of anything existing programs have taken on before. With respect to the idea that we can create an infrastructure bank within the Ex-Im Bank, we should be cautious about assuming we can re-task a well established bureaucracy with an entirely new mission that requires different financing expertise and a different institutional culture. It is probably better to avoid big changes to a program that is currently functioning well, and instead to look to it as a model to be drawn upon and replicated instead of forcing a merger of two very different programs under the one roof. Democrats will say no – they are wedded to their own I-bank conceptTanya Snyder, Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica and public radio, 10/07/2011 “Does the Elusive Infrastructure Bank Already Exist? There’s not a lot of interest on Capitol Hill yet about this idea, but it could become the compromise that saves the whole I-bank concept. For now, some say, politicians that have been on the forefront of the bank idea would rather stick with their own idea (which they can then take credit for). Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-CT) has been the primary Congressional champion of an infrastructure bank for the past 17 years. At an event yesterday sponsored by PPI, Delauro admitted that while the Ex-Im Bank was an interesting model, “Yes, I am wedded to an infrastructure bank.” Sen. Mark Warner, an original cosponsor of the Kerry-Hutchison BUILD Act, gave a similarly cautious welcome to the Ex-Im Bank proposal. “I’ve not given that enough thought, but I think it’s something that ought to be examined,” he said yesterday. He did say that he and his cohorts have always thought of the Ex-Im Bank as a far closer model for the infrastructure bank than Fannie and Freddie. Delauro also said simply expanding TIFIA or strengthening state infrastructure banks wouldn’t “meet the aims” of a national infrastructure bank. And she “applauded” the Kerry-Hutchison proposal but said hers would issue bonds and be capitalized at $20 billion, not $10 billion. “Without the enhanced finance capacity we may not be able to get to a scale that we need to properly address the jobs crisis that we face in this country and meet a bank’s potential to be able reduce our infrastructure investment deficit and enhance our global competitiveness,” Delauro said. “It’s good, it’s great, but it’s not where we could go with this concept.” Whatever form it takes, Delauro insisted that the U.S. must not go on as “one of the only leading nations without a national plan for public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects or a national infrastructure bank to finance large scale projects and to leverage private capital.” Solvency Turn- High Speed Rail is a go green initiative, EX-import will say noJustin Guay Published: April 12, The writer is Washington representative of the Sierra Club International Climate Program http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-ex-im-bank-ignores-clean-energy opportunities/2012/04/12/gIQAJU7aDT_story.html The April 9 editorial “Impasse over the Ex-Im” missed the boat on the Export-Import Bank’s congressionally mandated renewable-energy target — and the tremendous opportunity that clean-energy exports pose for the U.S. economy. Clean energy is a $260 billion global industry whose exports create far more jobs per dollar invested than do investments in traditional fossil fuels. If institutions such as the Ex-Im Bank fail to ensure American business opportunities in this fast-growing market, our competitiveness, along with our environment, will be directly threatened. Unfortunately, however, Ex-Im has ignored its renewables requirement for decades, with no penalty. To date, the highest portion of its portfolio dedicated to this important sector was less than 1 percent. The bank also provides more fossil fuel financing than any federal source, including loans for the world’s largest and most polluting coal-fired power plants, in India and South Africa. This is a catastrophe for the climate, our economy and our jobs.¶ The Obama administration has called for an end to wasteful fossil fuel subsidies. If anything, Congress must justify the Ex-Im Bank’s existence as a modern economic institution by ditching fossil fuel finance and increasing the renewable-energy requirement along with penalties for noncompliance. Ex-Import fails extension by Majority, it’s entirely too expensive
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