Washington

WASHINGTON — Douglas Lee Campbell, a former senior vice president and marketer in Bank of America’s municipal derivatives group, pleaded guilty Thursday to three criminal counts for engaging in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies connected with guaranteed investment contract and other municipal finance agreements.

WASHINGTON — Five airports will receive a total of $9 million in unexpected grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act because of lower-than-expected bids on other airports’ stimulus projects.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has issued draft guidance warning broker’s brokers of their obligations under its rules following recent enforcement actions by the Securities Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority alleging rule violations.

WASHINGTON — The Cinco Municipal Utility District No. 1 near Houston announced that the Internal Revenue Service has closed an audit of $5.2 million of revenue bonds it issued with no change to their tax-exempt status.

WASHINGTON — Federal lawmakers return to work next week, but market participants warn it is unlikely they will take action on proposals to ­extend expiring tax programs like Build America Bonds or extend income tax cuts for the middle class before the November ­elections.

WASHINGTON — With the 2010 elections close at hand, Democrats are at risk of losing their No. 2 lawmaker on the House Financial Services Committee.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission will kick off its much-awaited series of hearings on the municipal market this month, holding the first on Tuesday, Sept. 21, in San Francisco.

WASHINGTON — The president is expected Wednesday in Cleveland to announce details of a $50 billion measure that would lead into a long-term program containing a national infrastructure bank — a proposal already offered by the administration but now being rolled out as part of an economic package.

WASHINGTON — Transportation stakeholders expecting a comprehensive bill anytime soon could be disappointed as major legislation reauthorizing federal highway and transit programs could be delayed until 2013, sources said last week.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday announced that it has adopted a temporary rule requiring municipal advisers to register with it by Oct. 1 to comply with the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

WASHINGTON — Bowing to growing concerns from muni issuers, Moody’s Investors Service announced Wednesday that it will stop trying to get state and local issuers to agree to indemnify and hold it and its officers harmless for any mistakes they might make as a precondition to assigning ratings to municipal bond transactions.

WASHINGTON — More than 90% of municipal analysts surveyed believe they are more likely to hear about material events from the news than from issuers’ continuing disclosure notices, according to a new study.

The Treasury Department announced several changes Wednesday to its new issue bond purchase program for housing finance agencies, most notably that it is extending by one year through 2011 its deadline for converting short-term taxable bonds to long-term, tax-exempt bonds.

The Internal Revenue Service Wednesday announced it is accepting applications from nonprofit electric cooperatives for $190.8 million of new clean renewable energy bonds that have not yet been allocated.

WASHINGTON — A National Bureau of Economic Research study has concluded that while Build America Bonds have succeeded in their mission to lower financing costs for state and local governments, traditional tax-exempt bonds still offer more enticing after-tax yields to individual investors.

An Internal Revenue Service agent is warning the Crystal City, Tex., Public Facilities Corp. that $13.9 million of bonds it issued in 2003 to purchase a jail may not be tax-exempt because the agency appears to have exceeded private business-use limits.

John Ramsay, a former federal regulatory and industry lawyer with broad experience in the municipal and other financial markets, plans to return to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 20, this time as a deputy director in the markets and trading division.

State tax revenues are slowly climbing out of recession levels, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded in a report released Monday.

Moody’s Investors Service is not pushing municipal bond issuers to agree to indemnification language for ratings as a result of provisions in the new financial regulatory reform law that make it easier for investors to sue rating agencies, a spokesman for the firm said Friday.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Friday asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve rule changes that would allow it to expand from 15 to 21 board members, 11 of which would be independent, public representatives not associated with securities or bank-dealer firms.