“It would be difficult and expensive to find another source’’ of insurance, he said, “We’d be at a disadvantage.”

Today, exports account for as much as half the sales of the company, which makes test equipment for manufacturers of high-speed machinery and has about 20 employees. Ken Maillar, president of Barbour Stockwell, said the low-cost insurance also allows the company to compete with foreign firms that receive similar assistance from their governments.

For decades, Barbour Stockwell Inc. has relied on the US Export-Import Bank to provide insurance in case one of its foreign customers doesn’t pay its bills; the product has lowered the Woburn company’s risk and helped it break into new international markets.


But Maillar might soon find his company at such a disadvantage. The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that provides insurance, credit, and other financial services to exporters, will go out of business at the end of the month unless Congress reauthorizes it.

The future of the bank is the next big trade issue facing Congress, following an overwhelming vote by the House on Friday to deny the authority that President Obama sought to complete negotiations on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The debate over the Export-Import Bank is expected to be nearly as contentious. It pits business groups, which argue the agency helps US companies compete in a global market, against conservative Republicans, who say the program amounts to corporate welfare for large companies such as aerospace giant Boeing Co. of Chicago and heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. of Peoria, Ill.

The outcome has implications for Massachusetts, where companies exported $27.5 billion in merchandise last year, accounting for $1 of every $20 of the state’s economic output. Since 2007, the Export-Import Bank has provided $1 billion in insurance and financing to 173 Massachusetts companies, helping them to export more than $4 billion in products.


James Brett, president of the New England Council, a Boston-based business group that lobbies in Washington, said many countries offer programs similar to the Export-Import Bank. Shutting down the US program, he said, would make it harder for many companies to break into and succeed in international markets.

“It’s like we’re unilaterally disarming on exports,” he said.

The Export-Import bank was founded during the Great Depression as a way to boost the struggling economy by helping US firms sell goods abroad. In the last fiscal year, the agency provided about $20.5 billion in loans, insurance coverage, and other financial assistance in about 3,700 deals with companies, according to the Congressional Research Service, the research agency for Congress.

Supporters say the agency — mostly through revenues it earns on interest from loans and premium payments on insurance — last year returned about $675 million to the US Treasury. Its loan delinquency rate is less than 1 percent, lower than many private lenders, supporters say.

Over the years, the Export-Import Bank has enjoyed bipartisan support, and past reauthorizations have not generated controversy. But this time conservative Republicans have moved to shut it down. Unless Congress reauthorizes the agency by June 30, it will have to stop making new loans and covering new shipments, even though it would be given time to unwind outstanding business.

Critics argue that the bank earmarks the vast majority of its funding authority to larger corporations, too often missing its goal of providing 20 percent to small business. Those large companies have the financial wherewithal and resources to support their own export activities, rather than putting taxpayer money at risk, critics say.


“It is time to wind down Ex-Im,” US Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said during a hearing on the agency earlier this month.

In some districts, conservative groups are targeting congressional members who support or are undecided about the Export-Import Bank with TV ads, referring to the agency as a “crony capitalist” institution that mostly benefits major corporations.

“We feel like the momentum is on the side of opposing reauthorization,” said Doug Sachtleben, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, a small-government, pro-free-enterprise group in Washington that has spent $1 million on a media blitz against the bank.

Business groups are countering with their own television and radio ads. The US Chamber of Commerce is advertising in dozens of congressional districts, highlighting the bank’s role in helping local businesses export products. In Massachusetts, the state’s largest employer group, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, is also calling for Congress to keep the Export-Import bank in operation.

Barbour Stockwell’s Maillar doesn’t understand why there’s a debate at all. The company pays for the insurance, a few hundred dollars a month, and has never made a claim. But without affordable insurance to cover the risk of foreign customers failing to pay bills — which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars — the Woburn company may “have to walk away from some deals,” he said.


“My vote is to keep the bank,” he said. “It’s not costing taxpayers money. We pay for the insurance.”

Jay Fitzgerald can be reached at jayfitzmedia@gmail.com.