Washington

WASHINGTON - The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board yesterday issued draft amendments to its Rule G-37 that would require banks and bank holding companies to disclose on a quarterly basis the contributions that their political action committees make to municipal issuer officials.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus unveiled health care reform legislation yesterday that would require bond-financed and other nonprofit 501(c)(3) hospitals to conduct regular assessments of community health needs, implement financial assistance programs, and limit how much they could bill certain patients and how far they could go to collect.

So many state and local governments are in fierce competition for $1.5 billion of discretionary grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation that it may be impossible for most of them to receive funding.

The Senate is likely to decide this week whether it will join the House in approving funds that could be used to establish a national infrastructure bank and pay for high-speed rail projects.

In a surprising development, the Treasury Department announced yesterday that tribal governments in 19 states allocated $1 billion of economic development bonds for 58 projects will be able to issue the debt as taxable Build America Bonds and receive direct-payments equal to 35% of their interest payments.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued guidance yesterday that will streamline the disclosure of so-called backer information on electronic trade confirmations sent to institutional investors in municipal securities transactions.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department took another crack at long-pending regulations for bond-financed solid-waste disposal facilities yesterday, issuing updated rules for the second time after the original ones proposed in 2004 were criticized.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured and fined White Plains, N.Y.-based Belle Haven Investments LP $32,500 for failing to timely report municipal securities transactions and for failing to enforce written supervisory procedures, FINRA said yesterday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured and fined White Plains, N.Y.-based Belle Haven Investments LP $32,500 for failing to timely report municipal securities transactions and for failing to enforce written supervisory procedures, FINRA said yesterday.

WASHINGTON — Issuers of direct-pay Build America Bonds will be able to receive their subsidy payments from the Treasury Department electronically beginning in 2010, a top Internal Revenue Service official said yesterday.

WASHINGTON — Retail order periods are often gamed so that retail investors do not get many bonds and dealers or institutional investors sometimes “flip” bonds, purchasing them and then immediately reselling them to retail investors at higher prices, market participants told the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board last week.

Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Jim Aloisi announced Friday that he will step down from his post by Nov. 1, the same time that a new bonding authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, will begin overseeing most surface transportation systems throughout the state.