Washington

A large number of dealer firms have voluntarily reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission deals they underwrote where issuers failed to disclose noncompliance with their continuing disclosure agreements, the SEC's enforcement director said Wednesday.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee has introduced legislation that would continue funding government programs and services until Dec. 11, preventing a federal government shutdown before the midterm elections.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has hired former BondDesk Trading LLC president John Bagley as its chief market structure officer, the MSRB announced Wednesday.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, calling municipal securities the "lifeblood" of U.S. infrastructure development, pressed regulators to revise federal banking liquidity rules to classify certain munis as high-quality liquid assets.

A recent announcement that Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle will end one of its contracts in 2016 poses certain credit risks, but has no immediate impact on its ratings, according to Standard & Poor's.

The Municipal Advisory Council of Texas is allowing issuers to post their IRMA representations on its website to help obtain information from financial services firms without violating Securities and Exchange Commission's municipal advisor rule.

Recent rulings from Washington State's Supreme Court to allow reforms of pension benefits are a credit positive for the state and local governments, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Texas voters will decide in November on a constitutional amendment that could boost state highway spending by $1.7 billion a year.

The Treasury Department's 2014-2015 priority guidance plan includes new projects to both update guidance on management contracts that impact private-activity bonds, and ensure PAB rules don't conflict with a new type of arrangement promoted by President Obama's health care reform law.

Municipal securities will not qualify as high-quality liquid assets under a new federal liquidity coverage ratio rule slated to take effect on Jan. 1. However, the Federal Reserve Board is working on a proposal to include some municipal bonds as HQLA at a later date.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing bonds issued in 2011 for a charter school operator in Chicago that settled securities fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June.

West Virginia is seeking a private partner to build a 3.3-mile segment of the Coalfields Expressway in the state's first P3 project under a 2013 law.

State treasurers and financial officers are urging federal banking regulators to identify quantitative liquidity standards or characteristics that would allow at least some municipal securities to qualify as high-quality liquid assets in a rule to be released on Wednesday.

A more than $700 million dollar deal that RBC Capital Markets executed in New Mexico earlier this month is has raised the eyebrows of some market participants, who think the firm's municipal advisory relationships with several New Mexico cities created a conflict of interest when it underwrote the deal for a power authority run by those municipalities.

The municipal market should benefit from the Securities and Exchange Commission's prosecution of Kansas for inadequate disclosure of faltering pension obligations, according to Moody's Investors Service.

A seven-member panel studying high-speed rail service in north Texas plans to seek federal funding to begin development of a line between Austin and Fort Worth.

A bipartisan House duo is threatening the Securities and Exchange Commission, warning it must further ease the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative for dealers before the Sept. 10 deadline for participation or they will step in with legislative action.

States are losing more than $1 billion a year by giving breaks on jet fuel taxes to airlines, the Unite Here International Union said in a new report.

Non-dealer municipal advisors are concerned that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's draft core MA rule contains an exemption for "inadvertent advice," while broker-dealers say certain aspects of the rule are too vague and too broad.

Oregon, which invented the gasoline tax in 1919, is on the road to be the first state to shift to a mileage-based user fee for highway funding.