Far West

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the long-term underlying rating on the Sacramento Transportation Authority’s variable-rate revenue bonds from to Aa3 from Aa2.

Moody’s Investors Services changed its outlook from positive to stable on $100 million of fixed-rate revenue bonds that Chapman University, a private school in Orange County, plans to issue.

An industry group and a consumer group have urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise proposed rules governing transactions between swap dealers and customers, arguing the proposal either goes too far and would weaken key issuer protections, or does not go far enough to protect dealers.

President Obama Wednesday, eager to prevent another political showdown over expiring legislation, called on Congress to quickly renew the surface transportation law that expires at the end of September.

WASHINGTON - Broker-dealer groups blasted a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board proposal to collect an annual $300-per-person fee from municipal advisors, saying the assessment would penalize dealers and dealer FAs who already bear the brunt of funding the board's operations.

LOS ANGELES - Vernon, a corruption-plagued city in greater Los Angeles, received a second chance to clean up its act when the California Legislature rejected measures that would have disincorporated the city.

House Republicans, eager to jump-start job-creation efforts after the debt-ceiling battle, are eyeing a top reform priority among state and local government groups as part of their plans.

The company looking to develop a National Football League stadium in Los Angeles saw two challenges crop up late last week.

WASHINGTON - With a nod to recent guidance from the tax-exempt community's accounting rulemaker, a bond attorneys' group has pulled contentious public pension-disclosure language from its most recent proposal, according to a draft of the group's pension-disclosure guidance circulated earlier this month.

The Obama administration is bringing back to Washington a key advocate for the Build America Bond program to help strategize the president's job-creation initiatives.