Washington

WASHINGTON — Blank Rome LLP has hired three new attorneys for its lobbying shop who are experienced in representing sovereign and municipal governments.

WASHINGTON — California Attorney General Jerry Brown is suing mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, for effectively killing programs that allow the state’s localities to issue bonds to finance energy-efficient upgrades made by homeowners.

WASHINGTON — Municipal bond analysts worry that issuers increasingly are drawing on bond insurance to temporarily pay for debt service without disclosing the action to investors.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., has introduced legislation that would allow new clean renewable energy bonds to be used to finance qualified biogas property.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Tuesday secured the 60 votes they will need to ensure passage of the most sweeping changes to financial regulations since the Great Depression, after Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson said he would vote for a version of the bill hammered out by a House-Senate conference late last month.

WASHINGTON — State tax collections grew during the first quarter for the first time since 2008, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Tuesday, raising hope that the national economic recovery may finally be improving states’ fiscal fortunes.

The Treasury Department is seeking comments from tribal governments on the tribal economic development bonds authorized by the stimulus law, including whether Congress should permanently repeal the “essential governmental function” standard for all tribal bonds.

Wall Street’s largest securities dealers eased credit terms during the second quarter for hedge funds and private-equity firms that borrow against securities and trade over-the-counter derivatives, according to the results of a Federal Reserve Board survey issued Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Congress returns to work this week still lacking a clear game plan for extending bond programs and other federal assistance for state and local governments, despite pleas for the extensions from governors meeting in Boston through the weekend.

BOSTON – U.S. governors this weekend called for greater fiscal discipline in their states to calm bond market fears over their debts, but they offered little consensus on efforts to extend certain federal government stimulus programs, specifically Build America Bonds.

CHICAGO — Washington Treasurer James McIntire last week chided Standard & Poor’s, charging that the rating agency inaccurately reported the funded status of his state’s pension system in a recent national report on looming pension funding and policy challenges facing states.

Six state and local groups are urging the Senate to pass an extension to the Build America Bonds program, which they say is critical to governments during this time of unprecedented budgetary strain.

Dealers would have to submit bidding information for auction-rate securities in a set of individual data points rather than in document form under changes the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board submitted Friday on a proposed expansion of its transparency system for ARS and variable-rate demand obligations.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Transit Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation Thursday announced $300 million in competitive grants for cities and local agencies to pay for 53 transit proposals including bus, streetcar and trolley projects.

WASHINGTON — New York City Comptroller John Liu is calling on the state’s congressional delegation to press the Internal Revenue Service to provide consistent and specific guidance on controversial issues surrounding the Build America Bond program.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has closed an audit of $52.5 million of bonds issued by the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District in southwest Florida with no change to the tax-exempt status of the debt, the district disclosed this week.

WASHINGTON — Programs that allow localities to issue bonds to finance loans for homeowners seeking energy-efficient upgrades have hit a wall after a federal regulator directed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to tighten their underwriting standards before they purchase mortgages tied to the loans.

DALLAS — The Port of Seattle will upgrade equipment at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and refinance several series of outstanding debt with proceeds from next week’s negotiated sale of $394.6 million of intermediate-line revenue bonds.

WASHINGTON — This month is a significant milestone for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, marking its one-year anniversary as the sole official repository for muni issuers’ continuing disclosure documents.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — With two upgrades in hand, the city-owned electric utility in Tacoma, Wash., has a $200 million revenue bond deal on the calendar next week.