Many House Republicans hate it. Senate Republicans, but not all of them, embrace it. The White House, congressional Democrats and business leaders all support it.

“It” is the Export-Import Bank, and it has become perhaps this summer’s biggest legislative mess in a town long-known for them.

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For those wishing to breathe new life into the taxpayer-funded enterprise the calendar is not cooperating.

Members of the House are slated to head home Thursday until Sept. 8; the Senate, which already held a rare Sunday session this past weekend, will adjourn Aug. 7 until Sept. 14. Sticking around Washington, D.C., and cutting into their summer vacation isn’t an option being considered, meaning that at least some decisions will likely be put off until mid-September.

The Export-Import Bank: A Primer
The Ex-Im bank provides credit, or essentially offers loans, for foreign purchases of U.S. exports. Created during the Roosevelt administration in 1934, the bank is an agency that arranges financing for foreign companies to buy large quantities of U.S.-made products at a premium. The agency’s charter expired June 30, and now Congress is wrestling with whether to renew that charter or allow the bank to close its doors for good.

Supporters of the bank say it provides an estimated 100,000 U.S. jobs that would otherwise be lost. Mindful of such numbers, the Obama administration has joined the business community in promoting the bank and its role in the U.S. economy. But opponents, from House leaders to some of the GOP’s more conservative senators, have criticized the bank as corporate welfare and beholden more to special interests such as mega-manufacturers such as Boeing. Many critics highlight the bank’s role in almost exclusively supporting large multi-national corporations and providing very little benefit to mid-sized or small American businesses.

The bank’s charter must be regularly renewed by Congress. The last renewal, in 2012, ran through this June, meaning the bank lost its congressional authorization on July 1. While it can maintain and supervise its current workload, it cannot take on new business.

Why is Highway Funding Involved?
Congress is also wrestling with how specifically to renew the Ex-Im charter, with many supporting its attachment to a federal bill to fund highway projects in communities across the country. Without action, a bill providing those highway funds expires on Friday, right in the middle of the summer construction season.

Attaching the Ex-Im renewal to a must-pass funding bill could persuade enough members of Congress to stomach a yes vote. A no vote in repudiation of Ex-Im would risk seeing road projects grind to a halt in their states or districts just as members are returning home for their annual August recess. Late Monday, the Senate voted decisively to do just that: Attach the Ex-Im Bank charter renewal to a six-year renewal of the transportation funding bill.

But House leaders have rejected that approach. Instead, they have passed a short-term extension of highway funding through the end of the year, without the inclusion of the Ex-Im renewal. The Senate is expected to agree to that stopgap measure and put off a final showdown over Ex-Im and Highway funding until they come back to Washington, D.C.

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Deadlines and Dark Horses
The House-Senate situation is exacerbated by simmering, dark-horse factors such as a contentious vote to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funds, a repeal of the 2009 Affordable Care Act, or vote to provide emergency funding for the Veterans Administration, or any debate over the arms agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

Even if votes don’t occur on those issues, they could still end up draining Congress’s dwindling time and attention. So far, one of the few issues that seems to have strong bipartisan support is $3 billion in funding for the VA, which the agency needs to plug a shortfall in providing health care to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

On Monday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., already ruled out extending the House’s current work period past Thursday, raising the pressure on the Senate to accept the more modest, House-passed highway bill.

A third option emerged Tuesday: An even shorter-term highway funding bill that provides for road projects through Oct. 29, plus the VA funding, but does not include the Ex-Im renewal. Under that scenario, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that House members may leave early, on Wednesday — therefore forcing the Senate to take the House bill or leave it.