Economy

Still recovering from Gov. Pat Quinn's recent call for $2.7 billion in Medicaid cuts, not-for-profit hospitals in Illinois took a second blow when he lifted a six-month moratorium on stripping hospitals of their property tax-exemptions for failing to provide sufficient charity care.

The Senate on Tuesday voted against limiting debate on dozens of amendments lawmakers want to add to a bipartisan transportation bill, setting up more negotiations as Congress moves closer to having to resort to yet another temporary extension to the current law before it expires at the end of this month.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board last week approved Naperville-based Edward Hospital’s $64 million expansion plan.

The next phase of the Dulles Rail Project will cost $2.7 billion — much lower than the previous $3.8 billion estimate that included an above-ground station, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority announced Tuesday.

CHICAGO — The governors of Kentucky and Indiana Monday released the first comprehensive financing plan for a massive $2.6 billion bridges project that will rely heavily on tolls.

DALLAS — As George Bush Intercontinental Airport's $1 billion redevelopment gets under way, Houston will issue $520 million of refunding bonds for the facility Tuesday, the largest deal of the year so far in Texas.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will go to market armed with a creative tool: the floating-rate note.

The North Carolina Turnpike Authority has received final federal approval of the route for the Garden Parkway, a 22-mile, limited-access toll road.

Seattle’s Highway 99 tunnel project is now expected to only get half of the expected $400 million to pay for construction costs from tolls, according to the Seattle Times.

WASHINGTON — With high-speed rail projects having trouble getting government and private financing, infrastructure firms and rail advocates are looking to "Plan C" - public-private partnerships.

Three months into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, American Airlines Inc. has begun to show its hand to investors holding $3.2 billion of the carrier's special facilities revenue bonds by making good — at least for now — on some debt-related payments while moving as expected to shed other obligations.

LOS ANGELES — Officials at Downey Regional Medical Center are probably wondering if five will be their lucky number after the bankrupt Southern California hospital announced the fifth postponement of a planned bond buyback Monday in a disclosure filing.

The chairman and chief executive of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the timing is ideal for two bond sales in March, including a $400 million offering next week.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and House Transportation Committee chairman John Mica traded jabs over the funding of California's high-speed rail project Wednesday, the latest public display of the rift between House Republicans and the Obama administration over the future of American transportation.

The executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said an audit report that upbraided the bistate agency is an effective wakeup call.

Sen. Ron Wyden is pushing for the highway and transit reauthorization bill to authorize a certain amount of TRIPs — tax-credit bonds that could be used for transportation projects.

Moody’s Investors Service last week downgraded Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare’s rating one notch to Baa2 due to the Illinois hospital operator’s modest operating performance for fiscal 2011 and the first half of fiscal 2012.

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority is set to issue a tender invitation in April to holders of the remaining $51.7 million of defaulted industrial revenue bonds as agreed to under a class action settlement aimed at resolving five-year-old litigation over the troubled 876 Bond Fund.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is proposing to sell as much as $500 million of grant anticipation revenue vehicle bonds to finance upgrades to road and bridges in projects that his office would select after consulting with local leaders around the state.

CHICAGO — The Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic plans to enter the market this spring to borrow roughly $200 million of new money for projects as part of the clinic's plans to spend $700 million annually on capital improvements over the next five years.