Gallego Calls on Export-Import Bank to Boost Domestic Manufacturing and Nuclear Energy Investment, Advances Push to Codify Make More in America Initiative

WASHINGTON –During a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing today,Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)questioned Export-Import Bank (EXIM) President and Chairman John Jovanovic on the bank’s investments in Arizona small businesses and nuclear energy and secured support for efforts to strengthen EXIM’s Make More in America Initiative (MMIA).
Watch Senator Gallego’s questioningHEREand read excerpts below:
On EXIM’sMake More in America Initiative’sSuccess and Future Growth:
Gallego:“EXIM has been a very powerful tool here in Arizona. For the last decade, the bank has authorized $460 million in financing, including transactions with small businesses. And the Make More in America initiative is really key to small businesses. But I don’t want to just lock in on what it is today. I want to strengthen it. […] My understanding is so far there’s about twelve transactions that have completed under the MMIA to date. That seems kind of low. Are we seeing a demand problem, as in like small businesses are not finding the program? Or is it a supply program on the finance approval side? Where is the bottleneck?”
Jovanovic:“Honestly, it’s been just a sense of timing. […] When we inherited the program it was only a year old. The first thing we did is to throw it into high gear. We doubled the amount of transactions done in MMIA and our pipeline is four times larger. We are actively looking for ways to make it a priority. And by the way, it fits into nearly every one of our four strategic priorities. It is helping exporters in America win. A lot of this has to do with energy security. Nearly all of it has to do with supply chain security. And we are starting to see more transactions, Senator Gallego, that touch on the industries of the future, whether it is artificial intelligence, dual use technology, advanced manufacturing.”
Gallego:“And how many are currently in the pipeline would you say?”
Jovanovic:“We inherited a program where there was 500 million dollars worth of authorizations, give or take. Today, the pipeline is nearly $8 billion, 16 times larger than what we inherited, and we want it to grow even more. And by the way it is always helpful to know how many opportunities we have, but it is also important to know the size, because sometimes these are the largest transactions that require a tremendous amount of due diligence but employ the greatest number of people.”
On the importance of investing in domestic nuclear projects like small nuclear reactors (SMRs):
Gallego:“I am very much interested in SMRs. As you know, Arizona is a nuclear state.  We have 30% of nuclear generation actually comes from one power plant. I think the deployment of SMRs can be a very big game changer on the green side, making sure we have low carbon energy, as well as the economic side, having baseload energy that is consistent and can ramp up as demand grows. Can you explain what is the intersection between EXIM and SMRS and how we can work together to get that industry growing?”
Jovanovic:“There is a tremendous amount of demand for US led nuclear technology from every corner of the globe. Not all of it is large scale as you very well mention – a lot of it is SMR-oriented. The best thing we can do is provide them the certainty so we can look at long dated strategic transactions that do have some technology risk. This is great area where simply relying on private capital providers alone, without some of our participation isn’t going to cut it.”