Far West

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has upped the ante in its dispute with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board over the self-regulator’s proposal to nearly double the fees it collects from dealers, warning that the MSRB must do a better job of explaining the need for the increase.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Alaska officials have nailed down their preferred location to build a $5 billion hydroelectric dam project that will require significant state subsidies and is also likely to utilize some form of municipal debt financing.

WASHINGTON — House members voted 234 to 188 Thursday for a bill that would extend lower- and middle-income tax cuts and make permanent two school bond-related provisions that were adopted in 2001 but are set to expire this year.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired two attorney-fellows to double the staff in its office of municipal securities, but efforts to comply with a congressional mandate to heighten the office’s stature so it directly reports to the chairman is being stymied by short-term budget stopgaps, sources said.

WASHINGTON — Three key Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill Thursday that would impose punitive action on any state or locality with a public pension fund that fails to file annual reports to the U.S. Treasury Department that adhere to a uniform set of accounting standards.

SAN FRANCISCO — Outgoing Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski has pitched an austerity roadmap to help rescue the state from a $3.5 billion shortfall for the upcoming two-year budget.

WASHINGTON — Raymond Scheppach, longtime executive director of the National Governors Association, announced Thursday that he will leave the group early next year to become a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and senior fellow for economic policy at its Miller Center of Public Affairs.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $147.5 million of auction-rate securities issued by the New Mexico Hospital Equipment Loan Council on behalf of the nonprofit Presbyterian Healthcare Service in 2004 and refunded in 2008.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Moody’s Investors Service changed its outlook on Nevada’s Aa1 bond rating to negative from stable this week as the state prepared for a $233 million general obligation bond sale.

WASHINGTON — State revenue growth will not bounce back to pre-recession levels until 2013 or 2014, according to new data released Wednesday by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.