Washington

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board yesterday filed a request with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow it to post credit ratings directly on the board’s Electronic Municipal Market Access site.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Washington plans to bring its largest-ever bond sale to market Tuesday, when it is scheduled to price $1.1 billion of motor vehicle fuel-tax general obligation bonds.

WASHINGTON — Leaders of the House and Senate tax-writing committees yesterday planned to unveil legislation that would temporarily extend the Build America Bond program as well as several other municipal bond provisions set to expire at the end of the year.

WASHINGTON — A fourth market participant, Mark Zaino, has pleaded guilty to participating in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies in connection with municipal investment contracts and derivatives, the Justice Department announced yesterday.

Two bond-issuing authorities in Virginia entered into a voluntary closing agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to preserve the status of $74.3 million of bonds after one of them sold its waste-to-energy facilities, which were financed with the bonds, to Wheelabrator Portsmouth Inc.

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to vote on proposed changes to its Rule 15c2-12 on disclosure at an open meeting Wednesday and also may direct staff to approve a related Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board proposal the same day.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to vote on proposed changes to its Rule 15c2-12 on municipal market disclosure at an open meeting May 26, according to a notice the SEC released Tuesday evening.

WASHINGTON — Maine is the first state or local government to obtain a credit opinion from the National Association of Insurance Commissioner’s Securities Valuation Office for a new issue of municipal bonds.

WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday voted down an amendment to financial regulatory reform legislation that would have imposed a blanket prohibition on federal assistance to states and localities in financial trouble for reasons other than a natural ­disaster.

The Securities and Exchange Commission should clarify the responsibilities of elected issuer officials who approve or authorize primary offering documents and secondary market disclosures, the National Association of Bond Lawyers said this week.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has closed its audit of $161.3 million of variable-rate demand student housing revenue bonds issued by the Payne County, Okla., Economic Development Authority in 2002 with no change to the tax-exempt status of the debt.

WASHINGTON — Moody’s Investors Service has hired Walter Winrow to head its infrastructure finance group, replacing Tom Keller, who is now a senior managing director at the rating agency.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia tomorrow expects to issue $32.9 million of qualified school construction bonds, now that a new law allows states and localities to issue certain tax-credit bonds as taxable, direct-pay subsidy bonds.

WASHINGTON — As the Senate moves toward finishing consideration of financial regulatory reform legislation this week, state treasurers are making last-minute efforts to change some of the bill’s muni-related derivatives and rating provisions, though it’s unclear if they were making any headway with lawmakers.

Transportation stakeholders are opposed to a provision in a draft climate-change bill introduced in the Senate that would generate more revenue based on emissions from the sector than would be re-invested in infrastructure or transportation projects.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., yesterday named Lily Batchelder chief tax counsel of the Senate Finance Committee.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has filed an administrative complaint against David Lerner Associates Inc. and its head trader, William Mason, charging they excessively marked up some 1,538 municipal bond transactions over a two-year period.

A position the Internal Revenue Service is taking regarding $150 million of student-loan revenue bonds under audit could have ramifications for the entire tax-exempt student loan bond industry, market participants said last week.

A group of 11 California issuers are charging that an affiliate of Goldman Sachs & Co., J Aron & Co., is pressuring a member of the group to remove Goldman as a defendant in its civil suit charging that 36 Wall Street and other firms participated in a vast bid-rigging conspiracy for municipal swaps and investment agreements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the former manager of two Schroders Investment Management municipal bond mutual funds of tipping his family members about impending distress to the funds and urging them to sell their shares.