Washington

WASHINGTON — Prospects look dim for U.S. airports to obtain the authority to charge higher passenger facility charges, which would generate more revenue to back bond issues.

WASHINGTON — The National Federation of Municipal Analysts is considering developing a pension-disclosure white paper that could be completed by early 2012.

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller D-W.Va., introduced a bill Wednesday that would create a national infrastructure bank and fund it with $10 billion over two fiscal years.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt bond office has received referrals of around 30 whistleblower claims of potential abuses in the municipal bond market, an official said Friday.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts recognized four members, including one who was honored posthumously, with awards for meritorious service and career achievement.

WASHINGTON — A federal court in New Jersey has approved UBS Financial Services Inc.’s $47.2 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over bid-rigging of municipal bond-related contracts as well as the amounts of restitution that are to go to each of 105 state and local issuers that were defrauded.

CHICAGO — Last year’s dire predictions that a coming record wave of expiring bank credit facilities would tax the municipal market did not come to fruition in the first quarter, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.

CHARLESTON — A pension expert panned federal lawmakers’ efforts to increase oversight of state and local governments’ public pension plans.

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire signed new legislation into law this month that regulates the ability of out-of-state bond issuers to sell private-activity bonds for in-state projects.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Market experts on Thursday painted a bleak picture of the municipal securities market over the next few years, saying the high bond volume of the past six years is gone and unlikely to return.

WASHINGTON — House Ways and Means Committee panel members, researchers, and muni market participants debated the merits and faults of a public-pension disclosure bill Thursday at a hearing that also focused on tax-exempt financing and pension obligation bonds.

The House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would delay the implementation of rules on municipal and other derivatives imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act by at least 18 months, until after the next presidential election.

WASHINGTON — UBS Financial Services Inc. has agreed to pay more than $160 million to settle antitrust, securities fraud, tax and other charges with three federal agencies and 25 state attorneys general for rigging bids for at least 100 reinvestment transactions in 36 states, threatening the tax-exempt status of more than $16.5 billion of municipal bonds.

CHARLESTON — Congress should give the Securities and Exchange Commission the authority to set baseline standards for issuers’ primary and secondary market municipal securities disclosures, the SEC commissioner charged with conducting a review of the muni market said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Municipal and other market participants yesterday urged federal regulators to consider allowing state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, utilities and other end-users in derivatives transactions to provide one set of required disclosures that could be updated when material changes occur.

WASHINGTON — Though several deficit-cutting commissions are recommending Congress and the Obama administration overhaul the tax code and cut tax expenditures, such as the tax-exempt interest from municipal bonds, the head of the Tax Foundation said Tuesday that the budgetary cost of munis is relatively small.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $20 million of Series A bonds issued in December 2005 by the City School District of Middletown in Orange County, N.Y. The audit was disclosed Monday in an event notice the issuer filed with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s online EMMA system.

A majority of the nation’s mayors want the new highway bill coming from Congress to emphasize streets and bridges over highways and to provide financing tools such as Build America Bonds, TIFIA loans or a national infrastructure bank.

SAN FRANCISCO — A push for a constitutional amendment to reduce Washington’s debt limit has run into a political roadblock.

WASHINGTON — States are ramping up pressure on online-only retailers to pay billions of dollars in state sales taxes, hoping the funds will help bring their tax collections into the 21st century.