WASHINGTON -- A bill that slices President Bush's budget request for Nevada nuclear waste burial while directing more federal spending into nuclear fuel reprocessing was passed by the Senate on Monday.

Senators approved the $30.5 billion energy spending bill by a vote of 84-4, sending it to the White House for Bush's signature. The House passed the bill last week.

The measure for the 2006 fiscal year directs spending for programs within the Department of Energy, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several smaller agencies.

The bill contains more than $285 million in earmarked spending inserted by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The money is directed to research at Nevada universities, for flood control and water conservation programs in the state, and for operations at federal facilities including the Nevada Test Site.

Among major items in the bill, Congress reduced the Bush administration's budget request to develop nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The stalled project was allocated $450 million, a 31 percent decrease from what Bush requested.

Lawmakers said persistent delays in the Yucca project mean the department does not need the entire $651 million that it requested earlier this year.

At the same time, lawmakers approved $80 million to continue research into advanced nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies, and an additional $50 million for an initiative to identify one or more of them that might be brought online in the next decade.

Scientists have touted reprocessing as holding the potential to exact more use out of spent fuel while reducing the leftover waste in volume and toxicity.

Experts differ however as to how long it might take to make the technology economical while some others have raised environmental concerns.

"Congress is taking a giant step backward by advancing spent nuclear fuel reprocessing programs," said Thomas Cochran, director of nuclear programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "These projects threaten our national security, our public health, and our safety. And they are wildly expensive."

A repository still would be required for the waste products, experts and lawmakers have said.

The measure directs the Department of Energy to open a competition for communities interested in hosting a waste reprocessing complex, offering $5 million apiece to develop site plans at four locations.

The department was told to submit a detailed program to Congress by next March 31, and to open the site competition by the end of next June. The target for site selection would be in late 2006 or 2007 with a construction goal of 2010, lawmakers said in the bill.