Washington

SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. — The National Federation of Municipal Analysts presented awards to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and five individuals last week, including Wisconsin state capital finance director Frank Hoadley and B.C. Ziegler & Co. director of research Ed Merrigan, during its annual conference here.

WASHINGTON — Last month, the Oklahoma fire marshal’s office cut staff again, dropping its headcount to 27 workers from 34 at full capacity four years ago, as another round of spending cuts was imposed.

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is preparing to take enforcement action against certain firms for selling municipal bonds to retail customers without disclosing material information, including that the bonds’ credit ratings had been spiraling downward, a FINRA official said Thursday.

SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. — Even as the major municipal market groups have pledged to work to improve continuing-disclosure practices, voluntary improvements to their timeliness and quality remains elusive after years of debate, some analysts say.

WASHINGTON — Utilities and energy companies are urging federal lawmakers to remove a provision of the financial regulatory reform bill that would impose a fiduciary duty on swap dealers engaging in transactions with state and local governments and require them to put the governments’ interest before their own.

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

Airport executives are accusing airlines of being hypocritical, claiming they are arguing against airports increasing passenger facility charges while collecting increased revenue from fees for baggage and other amenities.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Transit Administration has launched a $775 million grant program to help local and state governments finance capital projects involving buses and bus facilities. The allocations will be announced in September.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — KeyBanc Capital Markets announced this week that it has hired the father-son team of John Urbina and Geoff Urbina to open a new Seattle office for the firm.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has introduced legislation that would exempt all water and sewer exempt facility debt from the private-activity bond volume cap.

CHICAGO — A marriage between Chicago-based United Airlines and Houston-based Continental Airlines may have a limited impact on their key airport facilities, as they operate mostly complementary routes, but it could add to the negative pressures posed by industry consolidation, market participants said yesterday.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to propose easing draft rule changes so dealers would only have to disclose the political action committees controlled by bank-related and other affiliates and not the amounts of political contributions the PACs make to issuer officials, or the names of those who receive them.

WASHINGTON — Congress could save billions of dollars by prohibiting tax-exempt colleges and universities from earning arbitrage indirectly through endowments that are invested at higher interest rates than what they are paying on their tax-exempt bonds, the Congressional Budget Office concluded in a report.

The treasurer of California, the largest municipal bond issuer in the nation, is urging federal lawmakers to amend the pending financial regulatory reform bill to require buyers of municipal credit default swaps to have actual exposure to the issuer’s underlying securities.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., soon plans to introduce legislation that would remove the cap on clean renewable energy bonds, following the transition of CREBs to a direct-pay system where issuers receive a 70% subsidy from the federal government to help with interest paid to bond holders.

State and local governments spent less in the first quarter of 2010 on infrastructure projects and new equipment despite a windfall of federal aid, figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday showed.

WASHINGTON — As the full Senate began to debate financial regulatory reform legislation Thursday, dealers pushed back against several provisions they said could shut down the swaps market for states and localities.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation this week issued guidance on how state and local governments should apply for $600 million for projects under a competitive discretionary grant program.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has raised the possibility of including a provision to extend the Build America Bonds program in an “extenders” package, which lawmakers hope to approve by Memorial Day weekend.

WASHINGTON — In a surprise bipartisan development, Senate lawmakers announced Wednesday evening that they would begin to debate financial regulatory reform legislation on the Senate floor by unanimous consent, a method that allows the bill to proceed without a cloture vote to limit debate on the measure.