Washington

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Seattle City Council Monday ratified agreements designed to smooth the path toward construction of a tunnel to replace the elevated Alaskan Way viaduct along the city’s waterfront.

WASHINGTON — On the eve of congressional hearings examining whether unfunded pension liabilities could trigger severe fiscal stress for state and local governments, a coalition of 10 groups representing state and ­local entities said public pensions are not in crisis and are not ­seeking federal assistance.

WASHINGTON — The Depository Trust Co. has changed the way it processes principal and interest payments for municipal and other securities, triggering revised procedures or challenges for some rating agencies, trustees and issuers.

WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on a House panel that plans to hold a hearing Wednesday on “State and Municipal Debt: The Coming Crisis,” believes states and localities need to reform their pension systems, but is uncertain about whether states in severe fiscal distress should be permitted to file for bankruptcy protection.

WASHINGTON — The House Financial Services Committee plans to examine state and local government budget shortfalls and the possibility of bond defaults in the municipal market, according to a 22-page draft of its oversight plans for the 112th Congress that chairman Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., has circulated among Republican panel members.

Five days before a House panel is set to hold a hearing — “State and Municipal Debt: the Coming Crisis?” — governors are insisting that municipal securities are among the safest investments and that states are keenly aware of the need to repay their obligations.

WASHINGTON — A significant number of municipal issuers are not filing timely or useful secondary market disclosure data, hampering the ability of investors or analysts to make good investment decisions, DPC DATA warned in a study released Thursday.

WASHINGTON — State rainy-day funds plunged by 70% or $21.3 billion from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2010, underscoring how depleted state funding cushions have gotten as they prepare fiscal 2012 budgets without federal stimulus aid, according to a report released Thursday.

WASHINGTON — States strongly oppose Congress drafting legislation allowing them to file for bankruptcy protection, which is not needed and would actually hurt them as well as the markets, economists and a representative of the National Governors' Association warned members of the Senate Budget Committee Thursday.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia released its comprehensive annual financial report for fiscal 2010 on Monday as its chief financial officer warned against letting the surplus in the general fund slip further in fiscal 2012, which will begin on Oct. 1.

WASHINGTON — California is not the first municipal issuer to prohibit underwriters from passing along industry trade-group fees to taxpayers through bond transactions.

WASHINGTON — Rating analysts are closely watching to see if states make structural changes in their finances to avoid their current fiscal problems as opposed to making one-time fixes that will not solve their underlying imbalances, a Standard & Poor’s analyst said Tuesday.

State revenues increased 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010, capping a full year of revenue growth and easing concerns that states should be able to file for bankruptcy protection, according to officials at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, which issued a report Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that investors can for the first time access detailed information that money market funds file with the SEC under changes to Rule 2a-7 that it implemented last year.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $51 million of auction-rate securities that were issued in a conduit deal in 2005 by the Orange County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority to current-refund bonds and finance a hospital project.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia expects to issue $81.7 million of federal highway grant anticipation revenue bonds on Wednesday in a deal that was delayed from December at an additional cost to the district of about $2 million.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring state public pension laws to see if there are common types of disclosures they could encourage issuers to submit to its Electronic Municipal Market Access site, MSRB officials told reporters Monday.

WASHINGTON — Amid widespread concern about the viability of public sector pension plans, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is weighing whether it should help issuers disclose more about their pension plans and liabilities.

As part of an ongoing initiative to examine developer-driven deals, the Internal Revenue Service is auditing $48.47 million of defaulted bonds issued by the Stoneybrook South Community Development District in Florida in 2007 for infrastructure improvements.

WASHINGTON — Though President Obama called for more investment in infrastructure and high-speed rail as well as an end to tax cuts for the wealthy, there was little that was new or politically doable in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, municipal market participants and analysts said.