Washington

DORAL, Fla. — An Obama administration official last week said the underwriting fees for Build America Bonds are coming down, and the expectation is that if the subsidized taxable borrowing program was made permanent, they would come down further.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an unusual report Thursday that showed JPMorgan did not comply with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s Rule G-37 on political contributions. But the report did not charge the firm with any violation of the rule or recommend any enforcement action.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia’s chief financial officer is warning the mayor and District Council members against additional borrowing that would breach the 12% debt-to-expenditures cap.

WASHINGTON — There are 10,000 transportation infrastructure projects under way in all 50 states and the District of Columbia with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Vice President Joe Biden announced yesterday.

DORAL, Fla. — The Treasury Department is “acutely aware” of the importance of the continuity of federal subsidy payments under the Build America Bond program, an official said yesterday.

WASHINGTON — President Obama Thursday signed a $17.6 billion jobs bill that enables municipal issuers to receive direct, Build America Bond-style payments from four types of tax-credit bonds.

WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday voted 68 to 29 to pass a $17.6 billion jobs bill requiring the Treasury Department to provide Build America Bond-style direct payments to municipal issuers of four types of tax-credit bonds, if they want them, instead of offering tax credits to investors.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury and Education departments yesterday allocated $11 billion of authority for states and large local educational agencies to issue $11 billion of qualified school construction bonds this year.

The House yesterday unanimously approved a bill that would provide a three-month extension of aviation programs, including airports’ ability to collect fees they use to back bonds. The bill also includes provisions that would change how some surface transportation funds are distributed.

WASHINGTON — In a turnaround over a controversial test, the Internal Revenue Service has withdrawn seven notices that had threatened the tax-exempt status of 12 solid-waste bond issues sold for Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific LLC over a nine-year period.

WASHINGTON — Moody's Investors Service plans in mid-April to move to a global scale for its municipal bond ratings so that they are more in line with its corporate debt ratings, after postponing the initiative during the height of the financial crisis.

WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd yesterday introduced a massive, reworked financial regulatory reform bill that would require the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s municipal securities office to report directly to the SEC chairman, significantly raising the profile of the muni market.

WASHINGTON — The Build America Bonds program would be extended for three years, but the direct-pay subsidy rate would shrink from the current 35% of interest costs to 33% in 2011, 31% in 2012 and 30% in 2013, under a draft of a second jobs bill unveiled yesterday by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich.

A third former employee of CDR Financial Products — Douglas Alan Goldberg — has pleaded guilty to three criminal counts for participating in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies in connection with municipal finance investment and other contracts, the Justice Department announced yesterday.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is seeking public comments on two matters related to private-activity bonds: final regulations for those issued to finance power facilities and the form issuers must file to elect a carryforward of unused volume cap.

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia tomorrow will issue $160 million of revenue bonds for the country’s largest non-commercial radio broadcaster, National Public Radio Inc., which has bolstered its listener base over the last 10 years, showing a steady increase in audience in contrast to other mainstream media companies.

A tax bill amendment that was introduced last week by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., would establish a pilot program for six airports to collect potentially unlimited passenger facilities charges.

WASHINGTON — A new jobs bill expected to be introduced today by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., will include an 18-month extension of the Build America Bonds program, a committee spokesperson said.

WASHINGTON — A second former employee of CDR Financial Products Inc., Matthew Adam Rothman, has pleaded guilty to participating in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies with other firms that provided investment agreements to states and localities, the Justice Department announced late Thursday.

WASHINGTON — Despite a round of aggressive lobbying by non-dealer financial advisers and former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt, the municipal market section of the massive financial regulatory bill that Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd is expected to release Monday is not likely to be much different than the original draft floated late last year.