The language, part of a broad defense bill, complicates plans by Private Fuel Storage to store 44,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation by preventing a rail line from being built to deliver the waste to the reservation.

The 374-41 House vote on the defense bill came at 4 a.m., after an all-night session. The Senate is expected to pass the bill later this week.

The Cedar Mountain designation would not kill the plan by PFS, a consortium of electric utilities, but it could create headaches and delays.

A spokeswoman for the coalition has said the company could simply truck the waste to the reservation, rather than shipping it by rail.

It is a legislative victory that Utah's delegation has been fighting for several years, and it might not have happened were it not for the intervention of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, according to Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

The Cedar Mountain language was bottled up late last week, amid opposition from Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who had the support of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and the prospect for passage appeared bleak.

But Hastert threatened to prevent the House from approving the bill unless Ensign sat down with Bishop and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch to explain Ensign's opposition to the Utah proposal.

There was a series of discussions between Ensign, Hatch and Bishop, culminating in a meeting Thursday night in Hatch's Capitol office where Ensign agreed to a somewhat diluted version of Bishop's original bill.

The original proposal would have created a ring of restricted areas around the reservation where the Bureau of Land Management would be prevented from approving a rail line.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission OK'd a license in September for PFS to build the facility, although the license has yet to be issued. Hatch has also been pressing the utility companies that make up PFS to drop out, and has commitments from three that they will not support construction of the facility.

The BLM also is planning to solicit another round of public comments on whether it is in the public's interest to permit construction of a rail line to the Skull Valley reservation. The original assessment, completed in 2001, said rail shipment was the best alternative.

The Cedar Mountain language is part of a much broader defense bill, that includes a prohibition on torturing detainees in U.S. custody, a military pay raise and a requirement that the president provide quarterly reports to Congress on military operations in Iraq.