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A new Biden administration rule requiring states to reduce transportation-related carbon emissions, which could affect infrastructure spending, faces opposition from states and Congressional Republicans. The rule, finalized last Wednesday, requires state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to measure greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and implement targets to reduce the emissions. It’s part of
Wisconsin has released a request for qualifications from firms willing to serve as bond underwriters in either a senior manager or co-manager capacity. The state Capital Finance Office will set up pools of qualified investment banking firms, which it will use to designate underwriting syndicates effective through Dec. 31, 2026. Clarifications are due by noon
Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Transcription below: Caitlin Devitt (00:04):Hi and welcome to another Bond Buyer podcast. I’m Caitlin Devitt, Infrastructure Reporter for The Bond Buyer. Joining me today, my guest is Karol Denniston, an attorney with Squire Patton Boggs and the firm’s global projects partner, where
Illinois’ rainy-day fund crossed the $2 billion threshold for the first time, following an $11.5 million deposit, the state comptroller’s office announced Monday. The fund has grown in size in recent years and now, at $2.005 billion, has enough money to run the sixth largest state for about 15 days compared to 2017 when it
Florida’s labor force grew by 0.2-percentage points in October while the state’s private-sector employment increased 0.3% and the unemployment rate remained steady, FloridaCommerce reported. “Florida’s unemployment rate remains at a low 2.8% and we continue to see job growth month after month, bucking national trends,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter.
It has been a good year for Jaime Alvarez. The 45-year-old was named Oregon’s director of debt management in October, after serving as deputy director/senior debt program manager for just under two years. A few weeks after his promotion, he found out the state’s March $989 million general obligation bond sale was named Far West
As the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act nears its second anniversary, the Biden administration is still striving to close the gap between awarding transportation grants and actually getting the cash to the states and cities that have won the money. Shortening that timeline remains a top priority for the administration, Federal Highway Administration CFO Brian
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has extended the suspension of his state’s gasoline tax for another month amid sustained high fuel costs. Kemp cited “ongoing economic hardships caused by rampant inflation” Wednesday when he signed an executive order foregoing Georgia’s 31.2 cents-per-gallon tax on gas and 35 cents-per-gallon tax on diesel for another month through Nov.
Voters in Maine rejected a much-debated proposal to replace the state’s two largest power providers with a public utility company in Tuesday’s election. Question 3 on the ballot, which asked voters to approve the state takeover of for-profit power providers Versant and Central Maine Power Company and the creation of a non-profit, publicly owned utility
A debate over Amtrak funding derailed the House of Representative’s fiscal 2024 transportation bill Tuesday as opponents, many of them Republicans from the northeast, criticized the bill’s deep cuts to the train agency. The House was set to vote Tuesday on the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development measure, one of 12 appropriation bills that GOP leaders
Missouri has asked a federal court to toss a lawsuit filed by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association over the state’s first-of-its-kind anti-environmental, social and governance investing rules, arguing that the securities association lacks standing to bring the lawsuit. The dispute stems from Missouri’s four-month-old investment rules that require advisors and broker-dealers to disclose
Texas ended fiscal 2023 with a hefty cash balance of $48.4 billion in its general revenue fund due largely to higher, but slowing tax collections, the state comptroller reported Monday.  The annual cash report for the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31 said the balance rose $14.6 billion or 43.4% from fiscal 2022. After transfers
With a huge airport bond deal potentially on the horizon, Houston Controller Chris Brown is concerned about bringing the debt to the market in the wake of a crackdown by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on compliance with state laws prohibiting governmental contracts with companies, including investment banks, that “boycott”  or “discriminate” against the  fossil
States would suffer deep cuts in water infrastructure funding they receive through state revolving funds, which make up a significant corner of the municipal bond market, under a bill passed Friday by the U.S. House of Representatives. The fiscal 2024 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations measure, House Bill 4821, totals $37.4