"The fact he said it on the record gives me a whole lot of comfort," Bishop told the Deseret Morning News. "Having him clarify his intent is powerful if push ever comes to shove."

As has been often the case in the Utah's nuclear storage debates, Washington and South Carolina lawmakers said Tuesday that if their states are targeted, they fear the interim facilities could end up as permanent waste repositories. They are concerned that establishing interim waste dumps might reduce pressure to open Yucca Mountain — which is opposed by many in Nevada.

"The state of Washington does not want to become . . . a nuclear waste dump more than we are already," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. "Interim, in geologic time, could mean several lifetimes."

The interim storage proposal comes as concerns continue about delays in opening the Yucca Mountain project. Last year a federal court questioned its proposed radiation protection plans. More recently concerns surfaced over allegations that government workers on the project falsified data.

Hobson, chairman of the Appropriations energy subcommittee, said that he strongly supports development of the Yucca facility but that interim storage is needed because of the delays. He said the government faces an estimated $500 million in additional liability costs for every year the government fails to accept waste. By law, the Energy Department was supposed to begin taking commercial used reactor fuel in 1998.

More than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste are now kept at reactors in 31 states.

Of concern to Utahns in the spending bill was language in the nonbinding committee report that states, "Should these or other DOE sites prove impractical, the department should investigate other alternatives for centralized interim storage, including other federally owned sites, closed military bases and non-federal storage facilities."

The only non-federal storage facility currently in the licensing process is the PFS Skull Valley proposal, which won a major victory Tuesday when the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rejected the state's appeal of an earlier decision to recommend that PFS be granted a license.

If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the PFS license — and the Utah congressional delegation seems resigned that it will — the PFS facility could be operational by the deadline specified in the appropriations bill debated Tuesday on the House floor.

And just as Utah, Washington and South Carolina are temporary storage proposals, Nevadans are fighting Yucca Mountain. And in many respects, the Utah and Nevada projects are tied at the hip: The Utah site is seen as temporary storage until Yucca is up and running, and as a transitional site after Yucca is at capacity.