Far West

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is calling for changes to the so-called Volcker Rule.

President Obama's $3.8 trillion fiscal 2013 budget alarmed the muni market by proposing to reduce the value of tax-exempt interest and other tax preferences to 28%.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer announced Monday that the state will go to market with its first general obligation bond issue this year on March 1 with around $2 billion of refunding GOs.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders talked about his approach to pension reform during a speech Monday at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., saying his reform plan could save the city up to $1.2 billion in costs over the next 30 years.

With tobacco consumption continuing to decline, Fitch Ratings last week downgraded $9 billion of tobacco bonds issued by Ohio and California after the two states were forced to draw on reserves to make their Dec. 1 payments.

The Internal Revenue Service has told the Nebraska Public Power District that $10 million of the $50.36 million of Build America Bonds it issued in June 2009 may not qualify for the 35% interest subsidy it receives from the Treasury Department because of a dispute over the issue price of the bonds.

SAN FRANCISCO – State officials have begun an early effort to find ways for California, Washington and Oregon to save money by cooperating on financing future infrastructure projects pegged in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

LOS ANGELES — Riverside County, Calif.'s financial advisor doesn't expect the county's recent one-notch downgrade from Moody's Investors Service to affect its ability to sell $35.5 million in lease revenue bonds Feb. 16.

San Diego officials are plowing ahead with plans to expand the city's convention center in a project that will require more than half a billion dollars of bonds.

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis said in a report released Wednesday that projected general fund and lottery revenues have been lowered by $35.1 million from the December forecast.