WASHINGTON – After the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to renew the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), which expired on July 1, 2015, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released the following statement calling on Senate leadership to immediately schedule a vote to revive the Bank. 

“Jobs in Connecticut rely on the Ex-Im Bank, plain and simple. If it doesn't get reauthorized, then people in Connecticut will be out of work, and I'm sick and tired of Tea Party Republicans playing games with the lives of people in my state. Today, the House finally took a step toward getting the Bank up and running again, and for that, I'm grateful. Now it's time for the Senate to immediately schedule a vote on this bill," said Murphy. "If we continue to delay , businesses in Connecticut will suffer. Like the manufacturer in New Britain who told me that financing from the Ex-Im Bank is ‘indispensable’ for his company to stay competitive in the global market, and a small solar company in Bethel was forced to lay off workers because it lacked financing that the bank could have provided. The Ex-Im Bank is a job creator that actually returns money to the U.S. Treasury—it’s exactly the type of smart investment we need to be making to create jobs and boost our economy.” 

Earlier this year, Murphy released a report that demonstrated the critical importance of the Export-Import Bank to Connecticut’s aerospace industry. Since 2007, the Ex-Im Bank has supplied Connecticut’s Aerospace Corridor with more than $1.1 billion in insurance, credit, and loans, directly supporting twenty-seven Connecticut aviation and aerospace manufacturing exporters, hundreds of Connecticut suppliers, and nearly 30,000 Connecticut residents employed in the aerospace sector.