By STEVE TETREAULT

STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told lawmakers on Wednesday that the Yucca Mountain Project was "broken," and he appealed for patience as he vowed to get it fixed.

Bodman said blame could be shared by the nuclear waste repository contractor, other federal agencies and the Department of Energy itself, "who did not manage it very well."

"We are attempting to manage it better," Bodman said. "My hope is by demonstrating a thoughtful process, we will be able to reclaim your support and that of the nuclear industry.

"We really had a process that was broken, and we are trying to fix it," said Bodman, who became energy secretary in January 2005. The nuclear industry "is being patient with me. I ask for your patience as well."

Bodman issued his appeal as he came under renewed pressure from members of a House subcommittee that sets annual spending for the Department of Energy.

The Cabinet member was questioned about continuing delays in the repository program, and about why DOE was not seeking to establish interim storage sites where thousands of tons of radioactive spent fuel now piling up at power plants in 39 states could be kept in the meantime.

Lawmakers said inability to make headway could endanger efforts to license new power plants at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The new projects could fail to meet NRC criteria for waste disposal, they said.

"I think we have a very serious problem here," said Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.

Subcommittee chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, said he was willing to help, "but we can't do it if you don't have a plan."

The Bush administration has been preparing legislation to speed work on Yucca Mountain, but it has been delayed in negotiations between the Energy Department and the White House.

Asked by Visclosky when Yucca Mountain was going to open, Bodman said: "That's sort of the $64 question."

"I would guess at least five years before we are in a position to put a shovel in the ground to build it," he said.

Nevada critics of the repository effort said Wednesday that management is only part of the problem. They maintained that Yucca Mountain is fundamentally flawed for safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel.

"I'm glad to hear he's finally admitting that Yucca has serious problems," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of Bodman. "I agree with him on the first part: Yucca Mountain is broken. But he's wrong about the second part; science has shown that Yucca cannot be fixed."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., renewed a call for DOE to abandon Yucca Mountain and to invest in dry cask technology to keep waste secured at power plants. "What we really need is a fresh start on our nuclear waste policy, but that can never come so long as Yucca Mountain remains the Bush administration's sole focus," Berkley said.

If anything, Bodman was pressed by lawmakers on the spending panel to move in the other direction, toward temporary storage away from power plants where spent fuel assemblies are stored in pools of water and in above-ground casks.

"We are laying all our eggs in one basket," Hobson said, referring to Yucca Mountain. "I think there will be great resistance to continue to leave those rods laying around those communities."

Bodman said he did not believe DOE had authority to establish interim storage before Yucca Mountain was licensed, but Hobson disagreed.

"You don't need Yucca Mountain to move spent fuel out of Chicago or out of Toledo," Hobson said.

Bodman said the matter was being discussed further within the Bush administration. "We are very open-minded on interim storage," he said.

The Department of Energy has spent roughly $8 billion to research and begin development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

President Bush and Congress approved the project in 2002, but there since has been a series of setbacks.

A federal appeals court in July 2004 threw out a key radiation health standard, and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel soon after invalidated an electronic document database that was a required precursor for licensing.

Inspection audits by the department and by congressional investigators have raised persistent questions about the quality of work being conducted by DOE and its management contractor, Bechtel SAIC.

Most recently there have been stop-work orders related to project design and to research on canister corrosion.

Almost exactly a year ago and several weeks after Bodman was confirmed as energy secretary, the program was rocked further by the disclosure that several U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists in e- mails discussed possible falsification of quality assurance documents concerning water infiltration at the site.

The research was a building block in DOE's case that Yucca safely could contain nuclear waste, and the department spent a year and more than $1 million to check the allegations.

Talking to the subcommittee, Bodman noted that DOE had expected to have filed a repository license application before he was confirmed, only to face new challenges.

"I have arrived and have taken on responsibility for a process that has been severely compromised," he said. "I inherited what I inherited, and I am doing my best to see that we comply with the law and satisfy our obligations. We have got to have Yucca Mountain, and I have got to make it work."

Bodman said he has taken steps to right the ship, installing a new manager who has initiated a redesign of the repository's surface complex in a bid to simplify waste handling. Also, Sandia National Laboratories has been given responsibilities for quality control, he said.

Bodman promised that by the summer he would give lawmakers a new schedule for when DOE expects to seek a repository license.

"I expect that when we have a new schedule, that on the date that we apply for a license we will be in the position to look you in the eye and to make the case that we are on top of this and that we know what we are doing," he said.