Washington

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.

A Congressional Research Service analysis suggests there are impediments to broadening the tax base by eliminating or reducing tax expenditures - such as tax-exemption for municipal bond interest - because they are viewed as "serving an important purpose" and are "quite popular" with the public.

SAN FRANCISCO — Wenatchee, Wash., and a local public facilities district hope to sell bonds to resolve a $42 million default on notes used to fund a public arena.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is seeking comment from the public and federal government agencies on the guidance it issued for provisions in the Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008, which provided additional volume cap for tax-exempt housing bonds.

State and local tax revenues in the fourth quarter of 2011 grew by 2.1% from a year earlier, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth, the Census Bureau said in a report issued Thursday.

WASHINGTON — Transportation, water and energy infrastructure projects are most attractive for investment by public-private partnerships in the United States, according to a survey of construction company and engineering firm executives.

Washington state lawmakers still haven’t come up with a budget to close a $1 billion deficit after a special session that lasted more than a week.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Miami officials have been told that civil charges may be brought against the city for failing to disclose serious budget problems in recent bond offerings.

WASHINGTON — House Transportation Committee chairman Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., will introduce a three-month extension of temporary law reauthorizing highway and transit programs — the ninth such extension — before the end of the month.

Rep. Bob Gibbs has drafted legislation that would create a TIFIA-type program to lower the cost of capital for water utilities, but state and local officials testifying at a hearing on Wednesday worried that it might eventually be used to replace, rather than supplement, state revolving loan funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday approved a proposal by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to make yields for interdealer trades available on EMMA beginning April 30.