Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

[spence]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

Wall Street Journal article on how we are funding off shore oil drilling in Brazil. Here's one excerpt from it "The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount."

Why can't we invest in our own resources?

President Obama Finances Offshore Drilling in Brazil - WSJ.com

Interesting...I can't find a single news report on this story.

I did find a response to the WSJ Opinion piece linked to above.

Your editorial "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling" (Aug. 18) more correctly should have read, "Obama Underwrites U.S. Jobs." That's because the mandate of the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im Bank) is to help create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing U.S. exports. Our offer to provide financing to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras does exactly that.

That's what is behind our decision to offer at least $2 billion in loans or loan guarantees to help finance purchases of U.S. goods and services by Petrobras. This increases the likelihood that American—not foreign—
workers will be employed to satisfy part of the company's planned $175 billion investment during the next five years.

Ex-Im Bank does not make U.S. policy. In fact, our charter prohibits us from turning down financing for either nonfinancial or noncommercial reasons, except in rare circumstances including failure to meet our environmental standards.

We make no grants. The vast majority of our financing consists of guarantees of loans made by commercial lenders, not Ex-Im Bank direct loans. The foreign buyers that use Ex-Im Bank products pay us in full. Over the past 16 years the fees that we collect have netted American taxpayers more than $4.9 billion plus the jobs those exports have created. Thanks to the fees we charge, the bank is self-sustaining and does not receive any appropriated funds from Congress.

At a time when jobs, and exports, are more important than ever in helping our economy recover, Ex-Im Bank is achieving its mission to keep Americans working, and we're doing it without burdening the U.S. taxpayer.

Fred P. Hochberg

Chairman and President

Export-Import

Bank of the U.S

Washington

I'd note that the USA is a BIG exporter of oil exploration technology and equipment. Many of these companies are my companies customers.

-spence