Far West

WASHINGTON — Critics of a new nuclear loan guarantee program warned a House Oversight Committee panel this week that it would subsidize too-risky investments, while backers claimed the program is critical to nuclear development.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Agriculture Committee’s passage yesterday of a bill to regulate over-the-counter derivatives and impose a fiduciary duty on swap dealers for muni issuers drew polarized reactions yesterday. Dealer representatives warned that it would kill the muni derivatives market while a former regulator applauded the provision and called for lawmakers to go even further.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is seeking to intervene and temporarily halt fact-finding by a group of localities in their class action suit against Wells Fargo & Co. and 15 other banks, broker-dealers and investment brokers for allegedly conspiring to rig bids and fix prices of investment and derivatives contracts in the municipal market.

CHICAGO — Several Midwestern recipients of portions of the $8 billion in federal stimulus funds earmarked for high-speed rail lobbied for more funding to promote overall rail use and defended their projects’ lack of speed against Republican criticism during a congressional field hearing here Tuesday.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $445 million of industrial development revenue refunding bonds issued by Campbell County, Wyo., in 2007 in connection with a waste-coal power plant now set to be completed in 2013, five years later than originally proposed.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is seeking public comment on draft interpretive guidance it released yesterday that outlines steps dealers must take to ensure the prices they charge customers to buy and sell municipal securities are fair and reasonable.

SAN FRANCISCO — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed a $4.34 billion fiscal 2010-11 general fund budget that would cut spending by 2.2% to rein in the deficit and rebuild reserves amid continued declines in most major tax revenue.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into an $83.3 million bond deal that Miami-Dade County sold last year on behalf of the county’s financially ailing Public Health Trust.

WASHINGTON — Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Blanche Lincoln and other Democrats contend it’s necessary to impose a fiduciary duty on dealers that act as swap ­counterparties to state and local governments because some of them have misled municipalities into entering swaps they didn’t understand.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Anna Eshoo will soon introduce legislation requiring the Treasury Department to use some of the profits it obtains from the sale of troubled assets under the TARP program to provide relief to local governments that lost money from the September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse.