WASHINGTON — A Treasury Department official, a former Federal Reserve Board chair, congressional staffers and state and local heads of finance spoke at an industry-sponsored municipal securities conference on Thursday that was closed to the press.
The Municipal Issuer & Investor conference was sponsored by Morgan Stanley and was held at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and Thursday. But a Morgan Stanley spokesperson said the firm does not let reporters cover conferences like the meeting on Thursday where former Fed chair Ben Bernanke was a keynote speaker for "The State of the Economy and Municipal Finance" and Treasury director of the office of state and local finance Kent Hiteshew was on a panel called "The Municipal Bond Market: A Washington Perspective."
Historically, the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities Exchange Commission's Office of Municipal Securities have declined to speak at industry and other conferences that were not open to the press. But Treasury officials declined to comment.
The event also featured a number of other issuer officials who were slated to discuss current topics in the municipal market. Jeff DeWitt, the District of Columbia's chief financial officer, delivered opening remarks. Puerto Rico Senate president Eduardo Bhatia Gautier was on a panel discussing credit concerns after the financial crisis, while Chicago chief financial officer Lois Scott and Philadelphia treasurer Nancy Winkler discussed pensions and other post-employment benefits.
Top policy advisors to U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. and minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., discussed the tax reform outlook on a panel that also included Richard Froehlich, chief operating officer, New York City Housing Development Corp.
California treasurer Bill Lockyer was also scheduled to speak at Thursday's luncheon. The conference agenda listed his topic as "November Congressional Elections and Political Effects on Municipal Issuers," but a spokesman for Lockyer said he might also discuss the recent decision by three federal regulatory bodies to exclude municipal bonds from qualifying as high-quality liquid assets under newly-adopted liquidity coverage ratio requirements. Some analysts have predicted that reduced bank appetite for munis could drive up issuers' borrowing costs, something important to Lockyer as top finance official to the biggest municipal issuer.
