EDA Announces New Regulations

Published December 19, 2014 This content is archived.

On Friday, December 19, 2014, EDA's Regulatory Revision Final Rule appeared in the Federal Register. The new regulations will take effect on January 20, 2015. 

Things to Know:

  • EDA’s revised regulations promote two key pillars of EDA: innovation and regional collaboration.  The final rule encourages coordination and the leveraging of other federal resources while providing greater flexibility to EDA stakeholders.  
  • The final rule will take effect on January 20, 2015.  The proposed rule, which was published in December 2011, received more than 120 public comments, which were taken into account in this Final Rule.
  • Based on the public comments, some key changes are to the regulations governing the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) process, EDA’s Planning program and Economic Development Districts (EDDs).

The Final Rule:

  • Removes outdated provisions (e.g., RLF Recipient no longer required to request that EDA subordinate its interest when seeking EDA approval to sell or securitize its RLF portfolio). 
  • Streamlines burdensome or unnecessary requirements (e.g., removes the “laundry-list” elements of CEDS and replaces them with four essential planning elements).
  • Clarifies definitions, processes and requirements (e.g., EDA will use most recent data from BLS to determine economic distress levels based on unemployment rate, and ACS data to determine distress levels based on per capita income).
          A complete summary of the key provisions in the rule is available here.