Louisiana-based Entergy Corp. sent a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch and the Utah congressional delegation Tuesday indicating that it would "hold in abeyance" future investments for construction of the PFS site.

"We recognize the political obstacles to finding solutions to management of spent fuel from nuclear plants and believe the Utah facility is probably not the best solution to be pursued at this time," wrote Entergy Executive Vice President Curt L. Hebert Jr.

Earlier this month, Southern Co. said it was withdrawing from the PFS partnership and XCel Energy and Florida Power and Light made commitments not to provide financing for the project beyond the licensing phase.

The four companies combined hold a 67.8 percent interest in the PFS project, which had eight original partners.

In September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized a license for PFS to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City until a permanent waste disposal site could be built at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The license has not been issued.

"When a large majority of PFS shareholders are willing to admit that PFS isn't likely to happen, then we know our work has been paying off," Hatch said in a statement.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin has said the members were not committed to supporting construction or storage at the site, which will be paid for with contracts to store waste. There are other companies that may be interested in storing their waste at the site, and if there are not, the facility won't be built, she has said.

The Senate is expected this week to send President Bush a broad defense policy bill that includes the creation of a wilderness area near the Skull Valley site that would hinder construction of a rail line to the proposed PFS facility.

The House on Monday passed the bill with the wilderness proposal, offered by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management, at Hatch's urging, also has decided to have another round of public comment on whether a rail line or station to transfer the waste casks from trains to trucks would be in the public interest. It's initial review in 2001 identified the rail line as the best option.

Hatch has been leaning on the companies to withdraw from the PFS partnership, seeking to convince them of the obstacles remaining to the plan and committing to working toward alternative solutions and ensure the federal government "lives up to its commitment" to dispose of the waste.

Hatch has said he supports a publicly financed initiative to develop a technology to reprocess the nuclear waste.

"I have no doubt that the actions taken by the Bush administration, combined with our success in securing Congressman Bishop's wilderness language, have put Utah over the hump in our fight against the Skull Valley plan," Hatch said.