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Economic Development Administration

Stephen Kong

Chief Counsel

Tel: (202) 482-4687
Fax: (202) 482-5671

EDA Website

Economic Development Administration

Welcome

The Office of Chief Counsel of the Economic Development Administration (OCC/EDA) serves the legal needs of EDA, a national leader in community-based economic development. EDA invests in economically distressed communities to enable increased private investment and higher-skill, higher-wage jobs. We invite you to visit EDA's website to learn more about its programs and activities. OCC/EDA is staffed with four personnel in the Washington headquarters of EDA (the Chief Counsel, the Deputy Chief Counsel, and two Attorney-Advisors), Regional Counsels in each of EDA's six regional offices and an additional Attorney Advisor in five of EDA’s regional offices.

OCC/EDA provides counsel on all EDA program-related matters, including pre-and post-approval project reviews and grant property management issues. Most of EDA's program responsibility has been delegated to its regional offices, and most project legal reviews take place there. Regional attorneys provide advice to regional EDA staff, referring matters to OCC/EDA headquarters or to OGC offices as appropriate. The regional office attorneys also handle regional Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, legal aspects of audit matters before they are referred to headquarters, and grant project legal issues such as adequacy of title, form and content of security instruments and covenants, and interpretations of specific project conditions.

Office Description

Headquarters attorneys manage EDA legal policy and the legal aspects of legislative and regulatory drafting and interpretation. In addition, the OCC/EDA headquarters staff processes audit appeals and resolutions, handles all denials of FOIA documents requests, responds to Departmental and EDA headquarters FOIA and Privacy Act requests, assists in debt collection and loan and grant property management matters, reviews project awards, correspondence, and other activities that take place in headquarters and generally advises EDA senior management on all aspects of EDA's responsibilities.

In Washington, D.C., OCC/EDA attorneys are located in Room 7325, Main Commerce Building, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC, 20230