Washington

Dozens of lawmakers are urging House leaders to reject proposals to eliminate or cap the exclusion for tax-exempt bonds.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system received more than 500,000 continuing disclosure documents from municipal securities issuers or their agents between July 2009 and March 2013, the board reported Wednesday.

Warning of a growing public pension debt crisis, Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced reform legislation on Tuesday that would allow state and local governments to invest in annuity contracts with private life insurance companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will pursue no enforcement action against Rhode Island over its pension financial disclosures, Treasurer Gina Raimondo said.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has released a draft report showing 10 candidate and 10 conceptual transportation projects that could move forward as public-private partnerships in the commonwealth.

The Washington State legislature reached a budget agreement on Thursday, meeting its deadline by three days and averting a government shutdown.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said farewell Thursday and gave praise to his department after serving there for over four years.

Virginia is continuing its push to be the leading public-private partnership state, opening a bustling travel corridor to private sector involvement a day after a major infrastructure firm announced it has moved its U.S. headquarters to the commonwealth.

The Senate Finance Committee's top two tax writers asked their 98 colleagues on Thursday to submit detailed proposals justifying which tax breaks should be kept in the code as they move forward on comprehensive tax reform.

The PFM Group announced Thursday that it has acquired an advisory firm in Washington State as part of its continued expansion in the Northwest region.

Public-private partnership, a financing model that has started to spread across the U.S., may face some challenges as Congress debates limits on the federal role in infrastructure, according to Simon Santiago, leader of Nossaman LLP's east coast infrastructure practice.

The Internal Revenue Service's Tax Exempt Bond Office published an educational paper summarizing processes to help issuers comply with federal tax law requirements and the voluntary closing agreement program provisions.

The American Road and Transportation Builders Alliance will focus on a potentially trend-setting challenge to a prominent Virginia public-private partnership at the group's annual conference July 24-26.

Former President Bill Clinton strongly urged Washington Tuesday to pass a national infrastructure bank bill and encouraged state and local governments to embrace more public-private partnerships.

If a budget is not passed soon, Washington State agencies face shutdowns and employees face temporary layoffs starting July 1.

A Washington, D.C. PACE green energy program completed its first financing, the District Department of the Environment announced.

The sentencing dates of more convicted municipal bond bid-riggers have been pushed back, according to documents filed with the U.S. district Courts for the Southern District of New York and Western District of North Carolina, as prosecutors seek stiffer penalties for price-fixing of investment contracts.

If the tax exemption for municipal bonds had been repealed in 2012, up to 892,000 jobs. $46.9 billion of labor income and $71 billion annually in gross domestic product would have been lost, according to a new U.S. Conference of Mayors report.

Michael Decker's recent letter offers nine criticisms of our report on municipal bond markups. I briefly address his comments in the order they appear so your readers can evaluate his arguments fairly.