Far West

The Securities and Exchange Commission Monday proposed a lengthy new rule to establish a permanent registration system for municipal advisory firms as well as individual advisers that would replace a temporary system for firms the SEC put in place in September.

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco faces a deepening financial crisis as its bond rating has been downgraded to junk due to accelerated payments on $120 million of debt.

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a measure to keep the federal government and some of its bond-related programs funded through March 4, by which time Republicans will control the House and wield considerable bargaining power in the Senate.

WASHINGTON — The outlook for public power utilities is uncertain for next year, as federal regulators ramp up efforts to implement greenhouse-gas regulations and states and regions push for developing more renewable energy sources.

WASHINGTON — Municipal market participants are disappointed that the tax bill signed into law by President Obama Friday does not extend the Build America Bond program and other key bond-related tax incentives, but will urge lawmakers to reconsider them next year.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Alaska’s Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority announced last week that the Federal Highway Administration has released a formal record of decision approving the route it has planned for its planned Knik Arm Crossing bridge project.

SAN FRANCISCO — Oakland is eying a controversial plan to sell bonds to help extend a “holiday” from paying growing public-safety pension liabilities, a return to a strategy the city invented 25 years ago.

WASHINGTON — Bank of America, now Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has returned more than $6.7 billion to its auction-rate securities customers and satisfied its obligations under a settlement announced Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged abusive ARS sales practices.

WASHINGTON — Three former executives of General Electric Co. subsidiaries — Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm — will stand trial in March 2012 for allegedly participating in wire-fraud schemes and conspiracies in connection with the bidding for investment contracts for municipal bond proceeds over a seven-year period.

SAN FRANCISCO — The bankrupt city of Vallejo, Calif., will be losing its top two finance officials.