Transportation industry

DALLAS - Denver plans to refinance $200 million of variable-rate airport bonds today and another $93 million on Friday to rid the debt of backing by MBIA Insurance Co. When the deals close, Denver International Airport will have refinanced $1.1 billion of debt this year.

SAN FRANCISCO - Tumbling gasoline prices and an economic meltdown are creating an uphill battle for a host of California transit bond measures that looked promising just a few months ago.

New Hampshire today will sell $150 million of general obligation new-money debt that will help support highway projects and infrastructure improvements throughout the state.

New car sales — a major component of California’s sales tax base — are down substantially in the state, according to a trade group.

DALLAS - The Texas Transportation Commission yesterday approved loan guarantees allowing the North Texas Tollway Authority to build a $1.3 billion turnpike on Dallas' west side, but not everyone was happy about it.

CHICAGO - Shortly after clearing its final federal regulatory hurdle, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines formally closed on its acquisition Wednesday of Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest Airlines Corp., six months after the proposed union was first announced.

WASHINGTON - In a hearing yesterday before a U.S. district court judge here, KBC Bank NV of Belgium agreed to give the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority 10 more business days to make a $43 million termination payment on a sale-leaseback deal that has technically defaulted.

WASHINGTON - The municipal bond market and state and local governments could benefit more from the election of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama as president than his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, according to an analysis of their tax, economic recovery and other proposals, as well as interviews with market participants and economists.

A lawyer for two Dulles Toll Road users said his clients are still reviewing whether to appeal a Richmond circuit court judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s transfer of the road from the state’s Department of Transportation to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

WASHINGTON - The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority sought court action yesterday to prevent it from having to make a $43 million termination payment on a sale-leaseback deal guaranteed by American International Group Inc. Meanwhile, House committee leaders pushed for federal assistance for more than 30 of the nation's largest transit agencies "at risk of default and financial collapse" because of similar deals.

WASHINGTON - State and local government officials told congressional lawmakers in two separate hearings yesterday that they need billions of dollars of direct aid from the federal government to combat the fiscal challenges they are facing.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority board is expected this week to name Jeffrey S. Dailey to fill the executive director's spot left vacant by the departure of Brian McPartlin.

A bill pending in Michigan Legislature would allow for the creation of a nonprofit street railway company — with the authority to issue bonds — to further an effort to build a $103 million light-rail system in Detroit.

New Jersey officials are working on issuing smaller tranches of New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority debt than in previous years to better match current market conditions.

Despite declining toll revenues, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is considering bond issues to expand three turnpikes, officials said.

CHICAGO - The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission and its finance team are watching the market closely to decide whether or not to proceed as soon as next week with Missouri's long-planned, first-time issuance of Garvee bonds in a $150 million sale.

State transportation officials are calling for Congress to pass legislation next year that would remove the $15 billion federal volume cap on private-activity bonds for transportation financing, authorize the issuance of tax-credit bonds to fund surface transportation programs, and distribute of 90% of federal transportation funds to the states.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering terminating two leaseback transactions and replacing or restructuring the collateral on another following the downgrade of American International Group, which had insured the transactions, the agency said yesterday at a finance committee meeting.

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department must take the place of American International Group Inc. as guarantor of transit agency sale-leaseback deals to avoid "financial disaster" for state and local governments, a group of lawmakers warned Treasury and Federal Reserve officials yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO - As the auction-rate securities market meltdown raged this spring, San Francisco International Airport rushed to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of ARS with variable-rate demand obligations, trying to beat other issuers to the market before liquidity dried up.