The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing panel, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, last week determined that unless Utah and Private Fuel Storage (PFS) wish to file further motions, the information-gathering phase of the license procedures has ended.

The Atomic Safety Licensing Board is made up of independent judges who make legal decisions and present findings to NRC regulators. The board is expected to finish its work within 60 days. The three NRC commissioners then will decide whether to order regulators to grant PFS its license, PFS attorney Jay Silberg said Wednesday.

Denise Chancellor, an assistant Utah attorney general, said Tuesday that the state has no further plans to file motions before the board. Nor does PFS, Silberg said.

The Atomic Safety Licensing Board is considering two final matters.

One is an appeal of its earlier ruling that the possibility of an F-16 crash on the PFS storage casks presents an unacceptable risk. In the other, the state claims PFS and nuclear regulators did not properly consider federal Energy Department requirements for acceptance of spent nuclear fuel before issuing a final environmental impact study.

The second matter stems from an Energy Department official's disclosure in October that the type of welded canisters PFS would use to store the spent fuel wouldn't meet contract requirements for permanent storage at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The state claims that undermines PFS assurances that its storage facility is only temporary.

Before that contention was filed last month, state and PFS officials expected the licensing panel to issue its decision by Jan. 21. Chancellor said she now expects the decision to be delayed as much as a month.

PFS, a limited liability consortium of eight utilities, is seeking a 20-year license, renewable for another 20 years, to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in 4,000 concrete and steel canisters that would sit on open-air concrete pads covering about 100 acres 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. If it is licensed, PFS could begin accepting shipments of spent fuel rods by 2007.

Federal law required a permanent nuclear waste repository to open by 1998. But multiple problems with the Yucca Mountain project, including lawsuits, intractable opposition from the state of Nevada and a lack of funding, has made the new 2010 opening deadline unlikely.

PFS officials say nuclear plants are running out of on-site storage for the spent fuel and need someplace to store the waste until Yucca opens.

Utah has no nuclear power plants.