Far West

The pipeline for municipal market enforcement cases is very full for 2016, said LeeAnn Gaunt, director of the SEC enforcement division's municipal securities and public pensions unit. "We're really operating on all cylinders."

Municipal market participants will once again see an active year for enforcement in 2016 as the Securities and Exchange Commission's self-reporting initiative largely wraps up and the enforcement division mixes a continued focus on pricing and market structure actions with potential new areas for enforcement like municipal advisors and bank loans.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's core conduct rule for municipal advisors, despite its controversial ban on principal transactions.

The gasoline tax and other dedicated taxes and fees provide about 70% of the funding in the new five-year, $305 billion FAST Act, but that level of support will drop to about 50% when the measure expires in October 2020, said Peter Nonis, senior manager for federal relations at the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The search for a robust revenue source to supplement or even replace the federal gasoline tax will pick up speed in 2016.

The new five-year federal transportation funding law has opportunities as well as some limits for P3 project financing.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown will seek public input in a series of meetings beginning next month on the preliminary findings of a policy group exploring the state's transportation needs.

The "gradual and contingent nature" of the California Public Employees' Retirement System plan to revise its investment return assumptions could mean substantial fiscal risk to California governments, Moody's Investors service said Friday.

An agreement to return control of the LA/Ontario International Airport from Los Angeles to an Ontario-based local authority is a positive for the Los Angeles airport but negative to the Ontario airport's credit, Moody's Investors Service said.

The bondholders and insurer in the San Bernardino, Calif. bankruptcy case are both criticizing what they describe as the city’s lack of coherent financial disclosure.