Far West

WASHINGTON — Utilities and energy companies are urging federal lawmakers to remove a provision of the financial regulatory reform bill that would impose a fiduciary duty on swap dealers engaging in transactions with state and local governments and require them to put the governments’ interest before their own.

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

Airport executives are accusing airlines of being hypocritical, claiming they are arguing against airports increasing passenger facility charges while collecting increased revenue from fees for baggage and other amenities.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Transit Administration has launched a $775 million grant program to help local and state governments finance capital projects involving buses and bus facilities. The allocations will be announced in September.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — KeyBanc Capital Markets announced this week that it has hired the father-son team of John Urbina and Geoff Urbina to open a new Seattle office for the firm.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has introduced legislation that would exempt all water and sewer exempt facility debt from the private-activity bond volume cap.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A Superior Court judge in California Tuesday upheld the state government’s shift of $2.05 billion away from local redevelopment agencies to help balance the budget.

CHICAGO — A marriage between Chicago-based United Airlines and Houston-based Continental Airlines may have a limited impact on their key airport facilities, as they operate mostly complementary routes, but it could add to the negative pressures posed by industry consolidation, market participants said yesterday.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to propose easing draft rule changes so dealers would only have to disclose the political action committees controlled by bank-related and other affiliates and not the amounts of political contributions the PACs make to issuer officials, or the names of those who receive them.

WASHINGTON — Congress could save billions of dollars by prohibiting tax-exempt colleges and universities from earning arbitrage indirectly through endowments that are invested at higher interest rates than what they are paying on their tax-exempt bonds, the Congressional Budget Office concluded in a report.