WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's ambitious plans for nuclear waste reprocessing got a cold reception Thursday from pro-nuclear lawmakers who said they were more interested in seeing a waste repository built at Yucca Mountain.

At a budget hearing with Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee expressed skepticism over the reprocessing initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP.

"I am concerned that this sprawling new venture may divert DOE's attention from other immediate concerns such as fulfilling its current responsibility with respect to Yucca Mountain," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the committee chairman, said he believed the reprocessing plan "may be overly broad, and it may be premature."

"Put me down as publicly respectful, but I am not a supporter," Barton said. "I'm not going to start down that trail until we finish other trails we started."

Barton said those trails included the Nevada venture and coal and oil projects that Congress passed last year but that President Bush gave short shrift to in this year's budget.

Bodman heard similar reactions Wednesday from another group of House members who handle energy bills, signaling the president's reprocessing plan might face a rocky future on Capitol Hill.

As he did in the earlier meeting, Bodman on Thursday described the embattled and delayed Yucca Mountain effort as a thorn.

"This one is an embarrassment," he said. "It has been around for a long time, and every time I use the words 'Yucca Mountain,' people cringe."

Bodman outlined his efforts to reform the repository program, which so far is eight years behind schedule. He said he has installed new managers who are redesigning segments to save money and simplify nuclear fuel handling at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

A Bush bill to fix aspects of the repository program will be ready "within a month," Bodman said.

He also said the Energy Department is beginning to prepare a report ordered by Congress on the possibility of building a second nuclear waste repository. The department is required to issue such a report between 2007 and 2010.

"We will be examining a number of states as potential sites," Bodman said, without elaborating.

As for reprocessing, the Energy Department is asking Congress to approve $250 million this year and more than $1 billion over the next few years as down payments for GNEP.

Advocates say they envision perfecting technology that can reprocess spent nuclear fuel in ways to make it less attractive to terrorists while recycling elements into new fuel that can be burned in a new generation of fast reactors.

The resulting waste, while destined to be buried at a repository, would be compact in volume and less toxic, they say.

Critics argue that the vision is a dream and that the reprocessing the administration envisions is uneconomical and unrealistic.