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Rep. Owens trying to get HubZone federal contract preference extended for northern New York

Posted 9/24/11

With many North Country communities facing the expiration of their Small Business Administration HubZones status on Oct. 3, Rep. Bill Owens is part of a bipartisan effort to get the leadership of the …

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Rep. Owens trying to get HubZone federal contract preference extended for northern New York

Posted

With many North Country communities facing the expiration of their Small Business Administration HubZones status on Oct. 3, Rep. Bill Owens is part of a bipartisan effort to get the leadership of the House Small Business Committee to pass an extension.

Owens, a Democrat from Plattsburgh representing the North Country’s 23rd Congressional District, along with another Democrat, Rick Larsen from the state of Washington, and two Republicans, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland and Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, have sent a letter to the Small Business Committee Chairman, Republican Sam Graves of Missouri, and the ranking minority committee member, Democrat Nydia Velazquez of New York City, asking the committee leaders to consider an extension of HubZone provisions identical to a measure that has been approved in the Senate.

Parts of St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Lewis, Franklin, Hamilton and Essex counties are designated as Small Business Administration HubZones, where businesses can receive a preference for federal contracts, but are scheduled to lose that designation because they no longer qualify due to 2010 U.S. Census results.

St. Lawrence County and other North Country counties will lose the HubZone designation because they fail to meet SBA requirements that median household income be less than 80 percent of the non-metropolitan state median household income based on Census figures. The area unemployment rate is also less than 140 percent of the average rate for the U. S. or state, whichever is less, another HubZone requirement.

The program encourages economic development in historically underutilized business zones - "HUBZones" - through the establishment of preferences.

“Many small businesses in New York and throughout the country that headquartered their operations in economically depressed areas will suffer if the redesignated counties do not meet SBA’s guidelines,” said Owens on the issue earlier this month.

“The surrounding communities, some of which have an unemployment rate as high as 10.5 percent in New York, could also be harmed by a significant loss of jobs and uprooting of families.”

In the letter to the committee leadership Friday, Owens and the other three representatives said, “During this economically challenging time with unemployment rates still much too high it is not an appropriate time to make it more difficult for small businesses to obtain federal contracts, which will likely lead to a loss of jobs in the affected areas.”