Democrat Reid, the senate minority Leader, plans to introduce legislation within the next few weeks that would authorize the Energy Department to assume ownership of the spent nuclear waste stored at reactors and store it at the facilities.

"This is the right thing to do and I look forward to discussing this option with my colleagues," Reid said this week.

The prospects for Reid's plan are uncertain.

He has been working for years to block the Yucca Mountain repository from being built in his state. On-site storage could mean that Yucca and a proposal by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of nuclear power generators, to temporarily store 40,000 tons of waste in Utah's west desert, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, would not be needed.

Joseph Egan, an attorney fighting Yucca Mountain on behalf of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said it is possible that moving ahead with Reid's on-site storage plan would make the PFS facility unnecessary.

Utah officials, including former Gov. Mike Leavitt and members of the state's congressional delegation, have said for years that, if the waste would be safe to ship and store in Utah, it should also be safe left where it is.

But Reid's proposal runs counter to the stated desires of President Bush, Congress and the nuclear energy industry, all of whom want the Yucca repository built.

After meeting with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card on Wednesday, Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett strongly endorsed the administration's position, saying the best way to block the PFS site is to make sure Yucca Mountain is built.

"They are committed to a strategy of straight to Yucca. Straight to Yucca means not stopping in Skull Valley," Bennett said Wednesday.

Asked about Reid's proposal, a spokeswoman for Bennett said he continues to believe storage at Yucca is the best solution.

Hatch could not be reached for comment.

Bush has requested $651 million in the coming year to work on Yucca Mountain, which is about half of what was projected for work on the facility. But Energy Department officials say the administration remains committed to seeing the project completed, even if it is done behind schedule.

"We believe it's necessary and we are committed to moving forward with the plan to build the repository" at Yucca Mountain, said Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis.

Egan said there is already a movement toward on-site storage and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said that storing the waste in casks is safe for at least a century.

The NRC has licensed 34 dry cask storage facilities in 25 states and has a goal of licensing 50 or more by 2010.

The courts have said the Energy Department can take title to the waste, but Congress would have to act to appropriate the money to maintain the storage sites, Egan said.

On-site storage would mean no cross-country waste shipments to Yucca, Utah or both, it would relieve pressure from state regulators that have sought to move the waste or shut down reactors, it would shift the cost and liability of managing the waste away from the utilities and it would resolve dozens of lawsuits the industry has filed against the government, Egan said.

There are currently 66 lawsuits against the government, claiming it has failed to live up to its obligation to build a permanent nuclear waste repository with $24 billion in fees collected from the nuclear industry.

But Private Fuel Storage and the rest of the nuclear industry are strongly opposed to on-site storage, arguing it would create scattered permanent repositories across the country, each demanding costly security and maintenance.

Mitchell Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry organization, says the nuclear waste is safe in the casks at the reactors, but "it was never intended to be a permanent fix. . . . The best solution for nuclear fuel is deep geologic burial."

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said several of the PFS partners have dry cask storage licenses today, but they are meant as temporary fixes, not long-term solutions. Other plants have space constraints that make on-site storage impossible or want to move the waste so they can reuse the property

Martez Norris, administrator for the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, which consists of utilities, attorneys general and regulators from 25 states, said the Energy Department made a proposal similar to Reid's several years ago and her group rallied to stop it.

"Any proposal to leave the material at plant sites indefinitely, the coalition will definitely oppose again," she said.

"We do not agree that these plant sites can become permanent, indefinite repositories."