Far West

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service has closed an audit of the Highlands County Health Facilities Authority's 2005 refunding bonds with no change to their tax-exempt status.

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Department of Water Resources will sell $1 billion of power revenue bonds this week as part of a plan to refund debt sold in 2002 due to the state's energy crisis.

Moody's Investors Service is proposing changes to its methodology for rating public power companies, which are not happy about the potential effect on their bond ratings.

Though he is "cautious" about the need for more monetary action since "we do not yet have enough information to conclude the economy won't resume a healthier pace of growth," Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president Dennis Lockhart Monday said the Fed has the tools, if needed, to ease policy.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined eight firms a total of $120,000 and asked two to pay almost $6,000 in restitution to customers for violating muni pricing, gift, trade, fair-dealing, and supervisory rules.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a non-binding agreement last week with the developer of L.A. Live, a multi-use entertainment center, that will allow the developer to go ahead with its plans for a National Football League stadium.

Alan D. Polsky, senior vice president of Minneapolis-based Dougherty & Co. and former chair of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, will become chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board beginning Oct. 1, according to market sources.

CHICAGO - Nonprofit health care issuers already bracing for steep government reimbursement cuts from the new federal health care law now face a new round of cuts tied to the debt-ceiling deal.

WASHINGTON - Morgan Stanley is poised to pay $6.5 million to settle charges made in a series of antitrust lawsuits that municipal issuers have filed over alleged bid-rigging of muni bond-related investments, even though the issuers do not appear to have found evidence showing the firm engaged in bid-rigging.

LOS ANGELES - A state audit of the Los Angeles Community College District called into question more than $140 million in district spending funded by three general obligation bond measures approved by voters between 2001 and 2008.