in effect
This is a presidential executive order (Executive Order 14145, signed January 19, 2025) directing federal agencies on how to coordinate economic-development programs. It sets a policy of using a “whole-of-government” approach to help “left-behind communities” — economically distressed regions, disaster-resilience zones, certain rural areas, and places already served by named federal programs — access federal support. It assigns tasks to the Commerce Department and a list of “implementing agencies” but creates no new program or funding on its own.
The Commerce Department, through its Assistant Secretary for Economic Development, is told to coordinate federal investments across 12 named agencies (including Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, HHS, HUD, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, EPA, and the SBA) and, within one year, to improve outreach to these communities and build an interagency “single point of entry” technical-assistance network. Within that same one-year window, agencies are to consider signing a memorandum of agreement to share information so applicants to one program learn about similar programs elsewhere. Agencies are directed, where consistent with law, to add preferences or incentives in future funding opportunities for applicants in and serving covered communities, and to help potential grant applicants understand and apply for federal grants. Agencies with field offices in distressed regions or disaster-resilience zones that had a major disaster declaration in the past three years are to seek local input, identify funding, and help with applications. The order repeatedly conditions these steps on “applicable law” and “the availability of appropriations,” and states it creates no legally enforceable rights.
The direct actors are the federal agencies listed, which take on coordination, outreach, and application-assistance duties. The intended beneficiaries are state, Tribal, territorial, local, and non-profit organizations in the defined “covered communities” — economically distressed and persistent-poverty areas, disaster-resilience zones, certain rural areas, and regions in the named programs — who may see more outreach, a single access point for information, and application preferences. Because the order says it grants no enforceable rights and depends on existing law and funding, its practical effect on any specific community depends on how agencies later implement it.