Washington

CHICAGO — The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday granted Chicago's request to preserve its ability to pursue a privatization of Midway Airport under a federal pilot program until the end of the year.

Bond attorneys are studying a recent IRS ruling that allowed Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to issue $1 million of bonds that were not subject to the alternative minimum tax.

The Department of Transportation has received $10.2 billion in applications for the $500 million available through its latest round of TIGER funding, highlighting the pressing need for infrastructure investment, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Thursday.

Larry Bowden, an executive at Little Rock-based Stephens Inc., has taken over as chairman of Bond Dealers of America.

A FINRA hearing panel has fined David Lerner Associates $2.3 million and suspended head trader William Mason for six months with a $200,000 fine for charging excessive markups on muni bond and collateralized mortgage obligation transactions.

The IRS has launched a compliance practice research team that will seek to identify red-flags indicating questionable muni bond transactions.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is urging muni bond issuers to voluntarily post information about their bank loan financings on the EMMA system.

WASHINGTON — A coalition of state departments of transportation have banded together to urge the House Republican leadership to avoid including any language in a transportation bill that would remove "important optional financing tools" for some public-private partnerships.

Treasurer Manju Ganeriwala has helped helm Virginia's finances through two governors and a global recession, and though the commonwealth has emerged in better shape than many states, she remains concerned about pension reform and what she feels are misguided efforts at muni market regulation by federal authorities.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey submitted a request to federal officials that its Bayonne Bridge "Raise the Roadway" project be considered for expedited review under President Obama's executive order on permitting and federal review.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service closed an audit without taking any enforcement action on $600 million of Build America Bonds issued by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago that some market observers claimed had been mispriced.

WASHINGTON — Congress approved a 90-day extension of federal highway funding Thursday, capping a week filled with wild legislative twists and turns that led House Republican leaders to pull shorter-term bills from the floor three days in a row when it was clear they wouldn't be approved.

The Alaska Railroad faces a big budget cut from the U.S. Senate that could potentially put railroad bonds in jeopardy, news reports say.

In recent years the SEC has sanctioned municipal bond issuers for not fully disclosing pension information or for understating pension liabilities in bond documents because officials feared political fallout. Now the opposite may be occurring.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing two special assessment bond issues totaling $64.46 million that were sold in May 2006 by the Wentworth Estates Community Development District in Florida and went into default.

The Bond Dealers of America has urged federal agencies to issue guidance clarifying how obligations of municipal market participants will change if federal regulators fail to finish writing the controversial Volcker Rule by the July 21 deadline — an outcome officials have warned is possible.

As the Government Accounting Standards Board prepares to hold its first public hearing on a proposal for state and local governments to provide five-year projections with their financial statements, groups are complaining the plan is costly, burdensome and outside GASB's mission.

WASHINGTON — A trend towards more detailed regulation of muni markets by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board could have negative, long-term consequences on market participants, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association warned the board in a recent letter.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia's $11.3 billion fiscal 2013 budget proposal is balanced and its plans to issue nearly $900 million of bonds will not exceed its mandatory 12% debt cap, according to chief financial officer Natwar Gandhi.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Monday asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve proposed rule changes that would allow individual investors to qualify as "sophisticated municipal market professionals," for whom broker-dealers would be exempt from having to meet certain requirements.