Congress expands export bank to finance domestic manufacturing—with hidden loan-loss loopholes
S. 4781 — Make More in America Act of 2026 · Filed by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 15, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The Make More in America Act of 2026 expands the Export-Import Bank's authority and funding to finance domestic manufacturing and technology development in strategic industries—semiconductors, batteries, robotics, aerospace, quantum computing, and others—to compete with China and create U.S. jobs. The bill increases the Bank's lending cap from current levels to $205 billion (fiscal years 2027–2033), establishes a new "Make More in America Program" offering loans, guarantees, and grants to manufacturers, and requires workforce protections including prevailing wages and union neutrality for larger firms.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to dramatically expand the Export-Import Bank's role in financing domestic manufacturing and technology development, framed as a competitive response to China. It is fundamentally an industrial policy instrument, not a traditional export-credit mechanism.
What the text implies
- The bill allows the Bank to exclude failed loans from default-rate calculations (Section 8), creating a moral-hazard mechanism where poor investment decisions can be hidden from public accountability by reclassifying them as strategic.
- The Investment Committee (Section 8) includes six Cabinet secretaries, the USTR, SBA, and six members of Congress, but the bill does not specify how conflicts of interest are managed or how decisions are made—potentially enabling coordinated industrial policy without transparent deliberation.
- The 10-year investment roadmap is supposed to be public, but the bill does not require public comment periods, environmental review, or congressional approval before the Bank begins financing projects aligned with it.
- The Bank may waive repayment assurance for loans if Congress appropriates funds for 'purposes inconsistent with such requirement' (Section 5), creating a backdoor for Congress to force the Bank to make unsound loans.
- The bill allows the Bank to hire up to 150 employees outside normal civil-service pay rules (Section 13), potentially enabling political patronage and reducing accountability.
Who it affects
The bill creates real public benefits—job creation in manufacturing, prevailing wage protections, workforce training, and support for economically distressed regions—but also expands government risk-taking (higher default thresholds, ability to exclude failed loans from default calculations) and concentrates significant discretionary power in the Export-Import Bank and an interagency committee with minimal public input into investment decisions.
Who stands to gain
- semiconductor manufacturers
- battery and advanced energy companies
- aerospace and defense contractors
- robotics and automation firms
- shipbuilding companies
- critical minerals producers
- small and medium-sized exporters (via delegated authority program)
Named in the bill
Export-Import Bank of the United States, Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Treasury, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Small Business Administration, National Economic Council, National Security Council — and 5 more
Where it stands
12 cosponsors: 12 Democrats.
- Jun 15, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 15, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
4 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $980,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 22 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 72% of bills with at least one filing.
Chuck Schumer, the sponsor, reported $141,375 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- AFL-CIO — $760,000 on 1 filing
- Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International — $150,000 on 1 filing
- American Alliance for Biomanufacturing — $60,000 on 1 filing
- Apptronik Inc. — $10,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the full bill text on Jul 5, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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