On credit: Louisiana has borrowed $189 million to replenish the account that pays for state-financed construction work. The Associated Press reports the state bond commission, which oversees construction spending, approved the general obligation bond sale Wednesday. The sale involves borrowing money by selling bonds to investors for upfront cash. Bank Of America Merrill Lynch was the winning bidder. The debt will be paid over decades with a 3.4% interest rate. Louisiana’s financial adviser, Lamont Financial Services, says terms of the sale are good and the state didn’t seem to take a hit from its credit downgrade by a national rating agency last week. Without new cash, Louisiana was expected to soon start running out of money for items in the state construction budget like building repairs, and economic development projects.
Under attack: Cybersecurity researchers believe computer controls at industrial facilities, including in the oil business, get infected by non-targeted malware at least 3,000 times a year, FuelFix.com reports. The San Antonio-based Dragos Security arrived at what it believes is a conservative estimate of worldwide industrial cyberattacks after studying roughly 30,000 samples of infected control system files submitted over the past decade and a half to a publicly available database called VirusTotal, a Google-owned web service. The findings, released this week, show malware that isn’t even tailored to industrial controls finds its way into critical technology far more often than the public assumes. Read the full story.
On hold: Uncertainty surrounding the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is forcing some U.S. hospitals to delay expansion plans, cut costs, or take on added risk to borrow money for capital investment projects, Reuters reports. The decisions to delay projects are dealing economic blows to the facilities and the towns they call home. Hospitals typically lay out multi-year operating plans that prioritize investments, enhance patient care, and are vital to local economies as a driver of construction jobs. But since the November presidential election, hospitals are shifting to a more conservative stance as they await sweeping changes to the nation’s health care law. Read the full story.
