Washington

WASHINGTON — House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin Wednesday introduced a new bill that enables Congress to make another attempt at extending several bond provisions slated to expire at the end of the year, including Build America Bonds.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department Tuesday indicted three former financial services executives — Dominick P. Carollo, Steven E. Goldberg and Peter S. Grimm — on a total of 12 criminal counts for allegedly participating in wire fraud schemes and conspiracies in connection with the bidding for investment contracts for municipal bond proceeds over a seven-year period.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Washington has upsized the refunding component of Wednesday’s general obligation bond sale, bringing the amount of debt being priced to $839 million.

WASHINGTON — A draft bill released by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin late Monday would authorize over $5 billion in new bond authority for renewable energy projects and open the door for private-activity bonds to be used by states and localities to finance energy-efficient upgrades to residential homes.

Members of Congress and local officials yesterday pushed for passage of pending legislation that would create jobs at the county and city level, in an effort to avoid losses of up to 500,000 government jobs over the next year and a half.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is wrestling with how much it needs to increase its staff, technological capability, and funds to implement provisions of the new financial regulatory reform law that require it to make the most expansive changes since its creation in 1975.

A discussion draft of a new bill unveiled yesterday by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., would allow state and local governments to issue tax-exempt private-activity bonds to finance energy improvements to residential homes and would authorize more than $5 billion for new renewable energy bonds.

Airports may begin seeking more public-private partnership agreements as financing needs mount and more private investors step forward, market participants said at a panel here last week.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is ­opposed to a gasoline tax increase or mileage fee to generate revenue for the next multi-year transportation bill, but would support a number of public and private options ­including bond-related financing, Transportation Secretary Ray ­LaHood said Friday.

WASHINGTON — House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin plans next week to unveil new jobs legislation that would extend Build America Bonds and other muni bond initiatives that are set to expire at the end of the year.

It will take five years to turn the new federal financial reform law into rules and regulation, an industry expert from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said last week.

WASHINGTON — At the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is moving forward with rule changes for priority of orders in primary offerings. The changes are more in line with the original proposal the MSRB floated late last year rather than a pared-down version it agreed to in April.

WASHINGTON — The House ethics committee’s investigative panel is alleging that former Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has violated ethics rules.

WASHINGTON — Congress only has a very small window of time early next year to approve a multi-year transportation bill or it will risk losing the opportunity to do so for another two years, congressional aides said at a meeting here yesterday.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have asked the Federal Housing Finance Agency to consider allowing a pilot program for Property Assessed Clean Energy bonds that would allow for the gathering of data on how the programs affect home loans, a point of concern for the regulator.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is considering temporarily expanding its 15-member board, possibly by two to four members, as it transitions to majority-public membership by Oct. 1 to comply with the new financial regulatory reform law.

WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday signed into law financial regulatory reform legislation that will make sweeping changes in the municipal and other markets, saying it will prevent a reoccurrence of the “breakdown” that caused the current “severe recession.”

EddieTech, a private nonprofit organization based here, is working to put together the first national pooled offering of direct-pay qualified school construction and qualified zone academy bonds for districts across the country.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to propose new rules designed to revamp the sales and distribution fees some mutual funds charge and to provide better disclosures of them to investors.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering holding five field hearings between September and January as part of a nationwide inquiry on the municipal market that is expected to lead to recommendations for statutory and regulatory changes to better protect investors.