WASHINGTON – The federally funded Economic Development Administration hasn’t seen an increase in funding in nearly a decade, and that’s cost New York State dozens of lost opportunities for job creation, according to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer.

Schumer, a Democrat, has launched a push to significantly increase federal funding for the Economic Development Administration for the first time in 10 years, making the case that hundreds of EDA applications go unfunded each year.

Those unfunded applications result in thousands of lost jobs and missed economic growth opportunities throughout upstate New York, Schumer said, including in the Southern Tier which encompasses Chenango County and ten other counties.

From 2007-2014, the Southern Tier saw 31 applications receive EDA funding of more than $15 million. However, eight applications submitted from 2011-2014, totalling $8.9 million, went completely unfunded.

The problem, said Schumer, is that EDA funds are life-saving for projects like sewer upgrades, business incubators, industrial parks, and regional innovation plans. But with EDA funding static (and in some years, funding for EDA has even been cut slightly), upstate is losing.

With a slow-going economy, now is the time to invest more in EDA activity, he said.

“A worst case scenario is when a community has done the hard work of attracting a new company to their backyard, but the business decides to move elsewhere because the EDA application for a modest infrastructure improvement was stalled,” said Schumer. “I am urging federal appropriators to make a significant increase in EDA funding this year so New York can use those funds to create new jobs, attract new businesses to the region and make key infrastructure upgrades.”