Far West

WASHINGTON — State, local, nonprofit and other groups are flooding the Securities and Exchange Commission with complaints that its definition of muni adviser in proposed registration rules is overly broad and would disrupt their bond financings and other activities.

SAN FRANCISCO — A Superior Court judge in California has denied a lawsuit brought by a public employees' union that sought to block a plan for a public-private partnership to rebuild a road linking San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued draft amendments to its Rule G-20 on Tuesday that generally would bar muni advisers from giving gifts and gratuities in excess of $100 per year to individuals or entities who could influence the award of advisory business.

WASHINGTON — Supporters of the Florida high-speed rail project are scrambling to come up with options to preserve it after Gov. Rick Scott rejected $2.4 billion of federal funding last week.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has introduced a bill that would prohibit state and local governments from issuing tax-exempt bonds unless they meet certain pension-disclosure requirements. Meanwhile, two House members have introduced separate bills to reinstate the Build America Bond program.

The chances that Ambac Assurance Corp. will be able to keep $700 million of disputed tax refunds increased last week when a federal court in Wisconsin again threw out the Internal Revenue Service’s case against the bond insurer.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service chief counsel’s office has issued guidance that sides with a conduit issuer in Montana and a retirement home operator in a four-year old dispute over whether some of the authority’s bonds are taxable.

SAN FRANCISCO — A long-debated plan to build a 600-room hotel next to the Oregon Convention Center in Portland may be rising from the grave.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A planned $138 million tax-allocation issue for Fremont’s redevelopment agency is the largest so far this year from RDAs around California rushing to market ahead of their potential demise.

SAN FRANCISCO — Southern California’s Borrego Water District has defaulted on $9.5 million of special-tax bonds owned by Nuveen Asset Management.