Washington

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has filed a rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission that increases the price of a one-year historical transaction-data report to $2,500 from $600.

The Department of Transportation is expected to launch TIGER III during the next few weeks, ultimately awarding grants for capital projects from $528 million that was provided for the program in the recently enacted fiscal 2011 budget compromise.

Under fire from congressional Republicans to slow down derivatives rulemaking, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted Wednesday to reopen and extend by 30 days the public comment period on proposed derivatives rules under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

WASHINGTON — This year will be the “toughest year so far” for state and local governments since the economic plunge began in 2008, with rating downgrades expected to outnumber upgrades, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

WASHINGTON — Market participants slammed the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s new draft Rule G-43 for broker’s brokers, calling it everything from irresponsible to anti-competitive.

Asset managers, a state pension fund, investment advisers, and a consumer group are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission not to eliminate references to credit ratings from its Rule 2a-7 on money market funds, warning that funds and investors would be harmed as a result.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the bonds of two issuers based in Florida — a health care provider and a community development district.

WASHINGTON — The Great Recession significantly widened states’ pension and retiree health care funding shortfalls, the Pew Center on the States concluded in a report released Tuesday.

Calls for the elimination of tax-exempt interest could seriously disrupt the municipal bond market, while incremental action to rein in the tax-exempt interest cost to the federal government is more likely than an all-out end to munis, market observers with the Bond Dealers of America said Monday.

With federal financial regulators scrutinizing Rhode Island's bond offerings and pension disclosures, the state has hired disclosure counsel to review its practices and pave the way to issuing new bonds.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has closed its audit of $308 million of variable-rate bonds issued by Murray City, Utah, in a 2003 conduit health care transaction without any change to the bonds’ tax-exempt status.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has introduced legislation to extend stimulus law authorizations for qualified zone academy bonds and qualified school construction bonds through 2015 and allow the debt to be issued with federal payments to issuers.

WASHINGTON — A bill by House Republicans that would delay implementation of derivatives rules has sparked a firestorm of controversy, with officials and lawmakers trading jabs over the pace of regulatory reform.

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., plans to soon introduce a bill that would require all new munis to be taxable direct-pay bonds with a 25% federal subsidy rate — a proposal drawing a frosty reception from issuers and underwriters.

Two Federal Reserve economists are refuting claims by some analysts that the muni market is headed for several billion dollars in defaults, calling the projections overblown and out of sync with past recessions.

At a meeting in Nashville last week, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board voted to further amend a proposed rule that would prohibit dealer-financial advisers from switching roles and acting as an underwriter and muni adviser on the same transaction.

WASHINGTON — Key Republican lawmakers introduced a bill Friday to delay implementation of derivatives rules by regulators and require them to hold hearings about compliance costs and regulatory alternatives.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $228.1 million of “green” bonds issued in February 2007 by the Syracuse, N.Y., Industrial Development Agency to determine if they violated tax laws.

DENVER — Examiners for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are worried about concentrations of municipal bonds held by national banks, and have begun asking risk officers to evaluate their exposures, an OCC official said.

DENVER – Examiners for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are worried about concentrations of municipal bonds held by national banks, and have begun asking risk officers to evaluate their exposures, an OCC official said.