Far West

This year will bring more municipal advisor and secondary market transparency regulation, while a newly Republican-controlled Senate could lead Congress to scrutinize and possibly ease existing laws and rules.

California Controller John Chiang called for greater scrutiny of the state's 4,800 special districts in conjunction with the release of an audit of two special districts.

Oregon is planning to sell $412 million of lottery bonds next week to fund development projects throughout the state and refunding outstanding debt.

A ceremonial groundbreaking for California's $68 billion high speed passenger rail project is scheduled in Fresno.

Lack of action on federal transportation funding means growth in states' use of public-private partnerships to build, fund, and operate large projects.

Los Angeles County's emergence from the economic downturn with key credit factors intact was cited by Moody's Investors Service in affirming the county's Aa2 issuer rating and other ratings notched below that, including an A1 rating on a forthcoming $168 million lease revenue bond sale.

Standard & Poor's affirmed Wyoming's AAA issuer credit rating saying that ample reserves outweigh concerns over the state's dependence on revenues from volatile sources such as commodities and oil and natural gas deposits.

The Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority in Washington received a negative outlook from Standard & Poor's on its outstanding "parity" lien obligations, but the authority, known as Sound Transit, retained its AAA rating.

States on the whole will see a slight increase in their new capacity to issue private-activity bonds in 2015.

Hawaii's draft $25.7 billion draft budget for the biennium contains plans to reduce general obligation bond obligation issuance by half compared to amounts pushed out over the past three years.