Far West

New-issue prices for Build America Bonds remain a hot topic among municipal market participants, as several market groups last week were weighing asking the Treasury Department for clarification on the subject.

This chart includes legislation introduced in the 111th Congress, which convened in January and extends through the end of 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority unanimously voted to endorse Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s proposal to accelerate the region’s mass-transit capital plan.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced yesterday that it has fined HSBC Securities Inc. $1.5 million and U.S. Bancorp Investments Inc. $275,000 to settle sales-practice violations for municipal and other auction-rate securities the firms sold to retail customers.

WASHINGTON — When President Obama last spoke at New York’s Cooper Union as a presidential candidate two years ago, he called for an overhaul of the “balkanized” regulatory system for the financial markets and blamed the credit crisis on Washington lobbyists and politicians who engineered deregulation in the late 1990s.

SAN FRANCISCO — California’s big underwriters make markets in credit default swaps on the biggest municipal issuer’s general obligation bonds, but they don’t seem to be betting against the state.

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.