Washington

The pipeline for municipal market enforcement cases is very full for 2016, said LeeAnn Gaunt, director of the SEC enforcement division's municipal securities and public pensions unit. "We're really operating on all cylinders."

Municipal market participants will once again see an active year for enforcement in 2016 as the Securities and Exchange Commission's self-reporting initiative largely wraps up and the enforcement division mixes a continued focus on pricing and market structure actions with potential new areas for enforcement like municipal advisors and bank loans.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's core conduct rule for municipal advisors, despite its controversial ban on principal transactions.

The gasoline tax and other dedicated taxes and fees provide about 70% of the funding in the new five-year, $305 billion FAST Act, but that level of support will drop to about 50% when the measure expires in October 2020, said Peter Nonis, senior manager for federal relations at the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The search for a robust revenue source to supplement or even replace the federal gasoline tax will pick up speed in 2016.

The new five-year federal transportation funding law has opportunities as well as some limits for P3 project financing.

A provision in the new transportation funding law that lifts the ban on using tax-exempt bonds in conjunction with federal loans will result in lower borrowing costs for water utilities, Fitch Ratings said on Thursday.

The Port of Seattle Commission has approved a $408.4 million budget for 2016 that includes extensive infrastructure investments as part of a more than $2 billion capital improvement plan.

Credit agencies say the new $305 billion FAST Act funding law is credit positive for state road and transit debt secured by federal transportation grants.

The Internal Revenue Service told Woodland Hills School District in Allegheny County, Pa. that bonds it issued in 2005 and advance refunded in 2013 may violate tax requirements and be taxable.

President Obama signed a five-year, $305 billion transportation funding bill on Friday.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said he expects Congress to agree on a multiyear highway bill by Christmas.

Christopher Brogdon, the retirement home financier who is facing Securities and Exchange Commission charges, has denied being liable for a particularly problematic deal in new filings with a federal court in Georgia.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposed rule changes to lengthen its board members' terms to four years from three has garnered general support from dealer and advisor groups as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of the Investor Advocate.

Washington State's projected costs have increased by nearly $700 million since the legislature approved the 2015–17 budget in June, leaving the state facing a more than $400 million shortfall.

New Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said on Wednesday that he plans to solicit the views of House members on tax reform over the next few months.

The Navajo Nation closed its first-ever bond transaction this week when it sold $52.9 million of investment-grade general obligation bonds in a private placement.

The Senate will consider a House-approved transportation appropriations bill that keeps fiscal 2016 highway funding at fiscal 2015 levels.

Puerto Rico's congressional representative Pedro Pierluisi strongly opposed the idea of the federal government imposing a federal fiscal control board on Puerto Rico, warning it would be "a blatant exercise of colonialism."

In a first-of-a-kind action, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board released a compliance advisory for municipal advisors on Thursday to help them understand and implement new regulations.