Far West

California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office Tuesday issued a report recommending that lawmakers reject Gov. Jerry Brown’s funding requests for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

Standard & Poor’s Monday raised the senior-lien rating on Los Angeles wastewater revenue bonds to AA-plus from AA, and the subordinate-lien rating to AA from AA-minus, in advance of a $360 million refunding.

Standard & Poor’s Monday lowered its long-term rating and underlying rating to BBB from A-minus on tax allocation bonds issued by the Banning Community Redevelopment Agency in California. The outlook was revised to stable from negative.

Alaska lawmakers adjourned their annual session Monday, only to have Gov. Sean Parnell call them back to Juneau for a special session that began Wednesday.

Speakers at a municipal analysts' conference here urged the muni bond community to educate lawmakers and regulators about the importance of tax-free financing, noting that few officials in Washington, D.C., understand the role muni bonds play in financing critical state and local infrastructure projects.

A Senate subcommittee hearing on bridge and tunnel tolls turned into a battleground as state and authority officials defended rising tolls and opposed legislation sponsored by subcommittee chairman Frank Lautenberg, warning it could cripple their abilities to raise revenue and finance projects.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of American Health Foundation Inc., raising questions about the tax-exemption of $28.96 million of refunding and revenue bonds that issuers in five states sold for three of its subordinate entities.

The tale of the tape continued Wednesday in the municipal bond bid-rigging trial in Manhattan, as prosecutors, interspersing audio tapes and transcripts with bid documents, called to the stand another former employee of brokerage CDR Financial Services, seeking to establish a pattern of fraud by three former executives of General Electric Co. subsidiaries.

WASHINGTON — Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, D-Neb., on Tuesday introduced the Bowles-Simpson budget deficit reduction proposal as his long-term budget plan and said the committee will begin considering it Wednesday.

Rep. Pat Tiberi, chairman of a House Ways and Means Committee panel, called for the elimination of most tax expenditures as part of comprehensive tax reform, which he said should be as pro-growth as possible and simplify the tax code.