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The Supreme Court has agreed to review an Obama administration policy that requires new power plants and other big polluting facilities to apply for permits to emit greenhouse gases.

To get these permits, which have been required since 2011, companies may have to use pollution controls or otherwise reduce greenhouse gases from their operations — although industries report that so far they haven't had to install special pollution control equipment to qualify for the permits.

The rule is part of a larger effort by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.

The EPA started with automobiles. It determined that once it did that, it was "compelled" by the Clean Air Act to also require greenhouse gas permits when companies want to construct big new facilities. The statute requires permits for all facilities that are major polluters of "any air pollutant." And the EPA has long interpreted this to mean any pollutant that is regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The utilities, manufacturers and chemical companies that petitioned the Supreme Court challenge EPA's decision. They argue that the EPA should have interpreted "any air pollutant" to mean only pollutants that have health-based ambient air quality standards, such as ground-level ozone, according to Jeffrey Holmstead, an industry lawyer who headed EPA's air pollution program under the Bush administration.

Furthermore, industry groups argue that getting these permits causes delays in big projects that could help revive the economy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided in 2012 that the EPA got it right.

In its decision, the appeals court cited a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which affirmed the EPA's determination that greenhouse gases are a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

That Supreme Court ruling also upheld the EPA's finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the Obama administration's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles.

The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case on the greenhouse gas permits for large polluters early next year.

These greenhouse gas permits are not the same as the greenhouse gas regulations that the Obama administration has been drafting over the last couple years.

The EPA last month released a second proposal for how it wants set limits on how much greenhouse gases new power plants can release. President Obama says he also intends to regulate greenhouse gases from existing power plants, but has yet to release a proposal.

If you don't pay your electric bill on time, probably you'll get charged a buck or two in interest. As long as you pay off the balance in a reasonable amount of time, your lights will stay on.

So why is it such a big deal that the Treasury Department may soon be unable to pay all of its bills on time?

U.S. Treasury securities are used as both currency and collateral for countless financial transactions around the world. Think dozens per minute.

Right now, Treasurys are almost as liquid and secure as cash. If investors are at all nervous that they might not be honored, this could have a cascading effect that will cause stock markets to tumble, the dollar to lose value and unemployment to rise.

"If Treasury bonds were no longer seen as risk-free, that would have implications for virtually all collateralized loans, which is a huge proportion," says Phillip Swagel, a University of Maryland economist who served as assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy under President George W. Bush.

"If people couldn't hold Treasurys, they would have to hold a lot of cash," he says. "We don't want people to feel like they have to hoard cash to make transactions."

Still A Big 'If'

Note that Swagel is still using the word "if." No one knows whether time will run out on the Treasury Department's authority to raise money.

Technically, it ran out in May, but the department has been able to keep juggling since then. The nominal deadline Congress and President Obama have been working with is Thursday, when the Treasury says it will be unable to borrow any more money by issuing bonds.

Politics

How The Debt Limit Became 'A Nuclear-Tipped Leverage Point'

If you don't pay your electric bill on time, probably you'll get charged a buck or two in interest. As long as you pay off the balance in a reasonable amount of time, your lights will stay on.

So why is it such a big deal that the Treasury Department may soon be unable to pay all of its bills on time?

U.S. Treasury securities are used as both currency and collateral for countless financial transactions around the world. Think dozens per minute.

Right now, Treasurys are almost as liquid and secure as cash. If investors are at all nervous that they might not be honored, this could have a cascading effect that will cause stock markets to tumble, the dollar to lose value and unemployment to rise.

"If Treasury bonds were no longer seen as risk-free, that would have implications for virtually all collateralized loans, which is a huge proportion," says Phillip Swagel, a University of Maryland economist who served as assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy under President George W. Bush.

"If people couldn't hold Treasurys, they would have to hold a lot of cash," he says. "We don't want people to feel like they have to hoard cash to make transactions."

Still A Big 'If'

Note that Swagel is still using the word "if." No one knows whether time will run out on the Treasury Department's authority to raise money.

Technically, it ran out in May, but the department has been able to keep juggling since then. The nominal deadline Congress and President Obama have been working with is Thursday, when the Treasury says it will be unable to borrow any more money by issuing bonds.

Politics

How The Debt Limit Became 'A Nuclear-Tipped Leverage Point'

Thieves, using axes and smoke grenades, break into a Swiss luxury watch store and make off with more than $2 million in loot.

What sounds like a scene from the latest Hollywood crime caper actually took place earlier this month in central Paris — in the latest of a wave of high-profile European jewelry heists.

It's been a particularly rich year for thieves in Europe, who have stolen tens of millions of dollars in diamonds and other precious gems so far. Worldwide jewelry thefts total more than $100 million each year, according to the FBI.

By European standards, the latest heist in Paris is pretty small potatoes. Compare it to the $105 million worth of rings and necklaces that were snatched in 2008 from the Paris outpost of Harry Winston, a premier American jeweler, or the $50 million worth of gems stolen from a plane waiting on the tarmac in Brussels earlier this year.

And there's the whole string of high-profile jewel thefts in southern France this spring, including one at a hotel in Cannes where a lone thief made off with more than $135 million in diamonds.

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