House poised to let Ex-Im Bank expire

House GOP leaders plan to effectively let the Export-Import Bank expire by leaving a bill to reauthorize it off the floor schedule next week.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) didn’t mention any Export-Import Bank renewal measure while outlining the legislative schedule for the last week of June, the final chance to act before the bank’s charter expires on June 30.

In a testy exchange on the House floor Thursday afternoon, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) asked McCarthy three times to confirm that the House would not vote on a reauthorization bill before the deadline.

{mosads}”There is no action pending, scheduled before the House,” McCarthy said.

“I apologize. Could the gentleman repeat himself?” Hoyer asked.

“There is no action scheduled for this House, no,” McCarthy said.

Hoyer noted “sadly” that the House’s 188 Democrats and 60 Republicans who have endorsed Rep. Stephen Fincher’s (R-Tenn.) bill to reauthorize the bank show that the votes are there.

Conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, have railed for years against the Export-Import Bank. Most House GOP leaders have stated opposition to renewing the bank’s charter, including McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).

Last week, the Senate conducted a test vote that supporters of the bank said demonstrated their ability to break a filibuster against its renewal.

Lawmakers who want to extend the Export-Import Bank’s charter have said they may try to attach a renewal measure onto a highway funding bill. That legislation, however, is unlikely to move in either the House or Senate before July, meaning the bank’s authority would still lapse.

The House and Senate are both scheduled to be in recess on June 30, which falls during the week leading up to the July 4 holiday.