EPA expected to issue million-year-long regulation [audio 5min]

In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to issue a regulation that will extend 1 million years into the future. The timescale of the regulation, which deals with the disposal of power plant nuclear waste, is unprecedented territory for the EPA. In 2002, after Congress and President Bush approved plans to store power plant nuclear waste material inside Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the EPA was placed in charge of laying out the repository's building codes, designed to last 10,000 years. But opponents of the Yucca Mountain plan filed a lawsuit which argued that the regulation did not extend far enough into the future. After the courts agreed, the EPA extended the regulation by 100 times, to 1 million years. The agency doesn't know if there will be anyone to protect 1 million years from now. No one does. Webpage includes extended report by David Kestenbaum, essay, images.