Washington

WASHINGTON — California is not the first municipal issuer to prohibit underwriters from passing along industry trade-group fees to taxpayers through bond transactions.

WASHINGTON — Rating analysts are closely watching to see if states make structural changes in their finances to avoid their current fiscal problems as opposed to making one-time fixes that will not solve their underlying imbalances, a Standard & Poor’s analyst said Tuesday.

State revenues increased 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010, capping a full year of revenue growth and easing concerns that states should be able to file for bankruptcy protection, according to officials at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, which issued a report Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that investors can for the first time access detailed information that money market funds file with the SEC under changes to Rule 2a-7 that it implemented last year.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $51 million of auction-rate securities that were issued in a conduit deal in 2005 by the Orange County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority to current-refund bonds and finance a hospital project.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia expects to issue $81.7 million of federal highway grant anticipation revenue bonds on Wednesday in a deal that was delayed from December at an additional cost to the district of about $2 million.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring state public pension laws to see if there are common types of disclosures they could encourage issuers to submit to its Electronic Municipal Market Access site, MSRB officials told reporters Monday.

WASHINGTON — Amid widespread concern about the viability of public sector pension plans, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is weighing whether it should help issuers disclose more about their pension plans and liabilities.

As part of an ongoing initiative to examine developer-driven deals, the Internal Revenue Service is auditing $48.47 million of defaulted bonds issued by the Stoneybrook South Community Development District in Florida in 2007 for infrastructure improvements.

WASHINGTON — Though President Obama called for more investment in infrastructure and high-speed rail as well as an end to tax cuts for the wealthy, there was little that was new or politically doable in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, municipal market participants and analysts said.

WASHINGTON — Muni advisory issues will continue to dominate the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board at its packed three-day meeting Wednesday through Friday in San Diego.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act faces a “serious threat” and “potential undoing” ­under Republican-proposed spending cuts, House Democrats warned Tuesday.

State officials on Friday angrily denounced reports that senators may be quietly developing a proposal to allow states facing fiscal crises to seek protection in federal bankruptcy court so that a judge could alter their obligations, including outstanding debt levels.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced Friday that it has tapped John Petersen to serve as a public representative on its 21-member board.

In an effort to prevent the Federal Reserve from bailing out state and local governments in fiscal distress, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Tex., has introduced a bill that would prevent the Fed from buying or selling their municipal bonds.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Washington priced more than $452 million of general obligation bonds Wednesday in competitive deals that drew multiple bids, even as lawmakers continued to haggle over the state’s growing budget deficit.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission approved two sets of rules for asset-backed securities Thursday, including one that would apply to certain municipal securities in early 2015.

WASHINGTON — The Utah Housing Corp. has filed a lawsuit against two brokers — CDR Financial Products Inc. and Investment Management Advisory Group Inc. — and eight providers of guaranteed investment contracts, claiming they knowingly engaged in bid-rigging activities to artificially suppress interest rates on investment agreements it purchased for its housing bond proceeds.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday allocated $400 million of qualified zone academy bonds to states and U.S. territories for 2011.

WASHINGTON — House Transportation Committee chairman Rep. John Mica said Wednesday that he will introduce a multiyear surface transportation bill later this year that includes Build America Bonds.