Washington

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued draft amendments to its Rule G-20 on Tuesday that generally would bar muni advisers from giving gifts and gratuities in excess of $100 per year to individuals or entities who could influence the award of advisory business.

WASHINGTON — Supporters of the Florida high-speed rail project are scrambling to come up with options to preserve it after Gov. Rick Scott rejected $2.4 billion of federal funding last week.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has introduced a bill that would prohibit state and local governments from issuing tax-exempt bonds unless they meet certain pension-disclosure requirements. Meanwhile, two House members have introduced separate bills to reinstate the Build America Bond program.

The chances that Ambac Assurance Corp. will be able to keep $700 million of disputed tax refunds increased last week when a federal court in Wisconsin again threw out the Internal Revenue Service’s case against the bond insurer.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service chief counsel’s office has issued guidance that sides with a conduit issuer in Montana and a retirement home operator in a four-year old dispute over whether some of the authority’s bonds are taxable.

House members have proposed almost 600 amendments be added to the continuing resolution needed to keep the federal government operating for the remainder of fiscal 2011, including additional spending cuts that could jeopardize the Los Angeles County Metro extension and other transportation projects.

Senate Banking Committee Republicans worry Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro and other regulators are rushing to implement rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act without sufficient regard to cost-benefit analyses or public comments.

Proposed federal legislation to standardize pension reporting to a central repository would improve transparency and likely improve pension funding, Moody’s Investors Service said in a special comment released Monday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority censured and fined Wells Fargo Advisors LLC $12,500 for failing to provide customers and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board with correct yield information from muni securities transactions.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $7 million of revenue bonds issued in 2007 by the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority for Confluence Energy LLC to finance the construction of a wood-pellet manufacturing plant in Kremmling, Colo.

WASHINGTON — Just one day after the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued a draft rule on muni advisers’ fiduciary duties, market participants are questioning the scope of the rule and whether it would apply to brokers engaged in certain activities such as recommending securities in which states and localities could invest general funds.

The Obama administration’s proposal to renew the Build America Bond program may suffer from the same problem it had the first time around, when the federal government didn’t think municipalities would use BABs that much.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said on Monday that while he remains open to exploring how Congress may play a role in restoring fiscal sanity to state and local government budgets, he does not believe Washington should dictate public pension standards or allow states to seek bankruptcy protection.

WASHINGTON — The $3.7 trillion fiscal 2012 budget proposed by President Obama Monday would permanently reinstate an expanded Build America Bond program but at a lower 28% subsidy rate.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued a draft rule Monday that would spell out how muni advisers will be expected to comply with new fiduciary-duty obligations imposed on them by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

WASHINGTON — As a House Judiciary Committee panel meets Monday to hold a hearing on public pensions and the need for state bankruptcy protection, pension and muni bond experts are opposing a recently introduced bill that would prohibit them from issuing tax-exempt bonds unless they subject their pension plans to federal oversight and regulation.

WASHINGTON — House panel members on Wednesday opposed federal bailouts for municipal governments and were reluctant to provide states with bankruptcy protection, but they seemed to support requiring improved public pension fund disclosure.

House Republican leaders are calling for a bill to be introduced next week that would temporarily extend transportation programs, John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said at a conference here on Tuesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board filed amendments to its Rule G-23 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday that would prohibit dealer-financial advisers from switching roles and becoming underwriters in the same municipal securities transactions.

WASHINGTON — Officials in the Obama administration on Tuesday announced plans to spend $53 billion over six years to finance the construction of a national high-speed rail and intercity passenger rail network.