Washington

WASHINGTON — The president’s deficit reduction commission Friday voted 11 to 7, failing to get a supermajority to move forward with its report.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has upped the ante in its dispute with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board over the self-regulator’s proposal to nearly double the fees it collects from dealers, warning that the MSRB must do a better job of explaining the need for the increase.

WASHINGTON — House members voted 234 to 188 Thursday for a bill that would extend lower- and middle-income tax cuts and make permanent two school bond-related provisions that were adopted in 2001 but are set to expire this year.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired two attorney-fellows to double the staff in its office of municipal securities, but efforts to comply with a congressional mandate to heighten the office’s stature so it directly reports to the chairman is being stymied by short-term budget stopgaps, sources said.

WASHINGTON — Three key Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill Thursday that would impose punitive action on any state or locality with a public pension fund that fails to file annual reports to the U.S. Treasury Department that adhere to a uniform set of accounting standards.

WASHINGTON — Raymond Scheppach, longtime executive director of the National Governors Association, announced Thursday that he will leave the group early next year to become a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and senior fellow for economic policy at its Miller Center of Public Affairs.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $147.5 million of auction-rate securities issued by the New Mexico Hospital Equipment Loan Council on behalf of the nonprofit Presbyterian Healthcare Service in 2004 and refunded in 2008.

WASHINGTON — State revenue growth will not bounce back to pre-recession levels until 2013 or 2014, according to new data released Wednesday by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.

WASHINGTON ­— The central issue for Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board members gathered for a special meeting Thursday and Friday at their Alexandria, Va., headquarters is how the self-regulator will oversee municipal advisers.

WASHINGTON — Municipal market participants warned Wednesday that they would fight any attempts by Congress or the administration to do away with tax-exempt interest for all new municipal bonds.

WASHINGTON — State tax revenues continued rebounding, rising 3.9% from July through September in the third straight quarter of growth, the Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Tuesday.

Bond attorney and longtime market participant Linda Grant Williams has secured a patent on an alternative credit structure that is designed to lower interest rates on special facility bonds for ­airports.

Changes to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Rule 15c2-12 designed to both increase the quantity and timeliness of issuers’ continuing disclosures take effect Wednesday and strongly encourage issuers of variable-rate demand obligations to use so-called long-form disclosure in their offering documents.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing $40.5 million of single-family housing bonds issued in 2003 by the Montana Board of Housing.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s expenses over the next two years will increase “at ­significantly higher rates” as the MSRB continues to expand its information systems and begins to regulate municipal advisers, the board is cautioning.

Market participants remain divided over the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's draft proposal to prohibit dealers from underwriting new negotiated or competitive bond deals if they served as the issuer's financial adviser.

Port authorities are pushing for Congress to reauthorize a five-year program that provides them with millions of dollars of federal grants.

The Internal Revenue Service yesterday released guidance clarifying that Jan. 1 is the deadline for issuers to receive tax benefits on “draw-down bonds” that are eligible for temporary bond programs, including Build America Bonds.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia expects to issue $522.4 million of Build America Bonds before the end of the year. The capital city is planning to use the general obligation credit for the first time in two years in one of the deals to maximize the BABs savings.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers is warning the Securities and Exchange Commission that applying its asset-backed securities rules to municipal bonds, as proposed, would violate existing law and run contrary to congressional intent.