Washington

Seattle voters will decide in November whether to authorize $290 million of bonds to help rebuild part of the city's seawall and downtown piers.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., has put a hold on two Treasury nominees.

Big bond commitments will be a major piece of the funding puzzle when it comes to constructing a national high-speed rail system, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood affirmed Wednesday.

A bipartisan group of senators will introduce an amendment to the small-business tax credit bill this week that would require online retailers to collect sales taxes from out-of-state customers.

The IRS is auditing $245.7 million of hospital revenue bonds issued by The Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama in Birmingham in September 2006.

The Senate Banking Committee is looking into the allegations that banks manipulated Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate that is used by financial institutions to set interest rates for financial products, including interest rate swaps entered into by municipal bond issuers.

A U.S. appeals court will take up a lawsuit as early as October that attacks the financial backing of billions of bonds paying for the Washington Metrorail's Silver Line Extension to Dulles Airport.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is releasing draft rule changes that would prohibit municipal securities dealers from consenting to amendments in bond authorizing documents, except in very limited circumstances.

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted 5-4 to go ahead with the county's participation in the second phase of the Washington Metrorail's Silver Line extension, committing the county to an approximately $270 million share of the construction costs of the controversial and largely bond-financed project.

Moody's Investors Service affirmed its Aaa rating on King County, Wash. unlimited tax GO bonds, and its Aa1 rating for its limited tax GOs.

New Rule G-43 requires that broker's brokers make reasonable efforts to obtain fair and reasonable prices when conducting secondary-market "bid-wanted" auctions.

While the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's new accounting standards announced Monday will improve financial reporting for public pension plans they also will put added pressure on cash-strapped state and local governments to reform their systems.

The latest round of TIGER grant funding will disburse nearly $500 million to 47 projects in 34 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday. The Department of Transportation received 703 applications from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and D.C. The awards ranged from $1 million to $21.6 million.

A struggling public arena in Wenatchee, Wash., hired Piper Jaffray to underwrite its upcoming refinancing of $42 million of outstanding defaulted debt. The firm had handled the previous deal that ran into trouble.

The IRS is auditing $105 million of general obligation building bonds that North Las Vegas issued in 2006.

The gap between many states' pension and health care benefit commitments and the money set aside to meet them is growing wider, representing a continuing and growing threat to their financial stability and creditworthiness, according to a new report from the Pew Center on the States.

Additional regulation of money-market mutual funds could increase short-term borrowing costs for state and local governments, leading municipalities to raise taxes or cut spending on infrastructure and other critical projects, according to a paper released Monday by a Georgetown University professor.