WASHINGTON -- A coalition that supports Yucca Mountain called Tuesday for Congress to allow the Energy Department to start placing high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada site while a repository for the material is being built.

Federal law prohibits the department from setting up temporary storage in Nevada for nuclear spent fuel at the same time that Yucca Mountain is being prepared for repository development.

But members of a pro-Yucca lobbying group said the law should be changed to speed shipments of radioactive material to Nevada and away from power plants in other states where it is being kept outdoors in casks.

"We are way behind already," said LeRoy Koppendrayer, a member of the Minnesota Public Service Commission. "There is money and material out there that is standing on pads aging and cooling long enough that it could have already been shipped."

At a news conference, repository supporters promoted policy changes they hope the Bush administration will embrace in a nuclear waste bill being negotiated between the Energy Department and White House officials.

The group includes representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nuclear waste transportation companies, power companies and utility commissioners and attorneys general from states where nuclear power is generated and nuclear waste is created.

Charles Pray, nuclear waste adviser to the governor of Maine, said repository designs have included "aging pads" where nuclear waste would be "cooled" before being inserted into Yucca Mountain.

The Energy Department should be allowed to build pads and move spent fuel onto them to allow a head start, Pray said. Even then, several years could pass before such a plan could be practical, he said.

"We are advocating that fuel be accepted at Yucca before the actual operation of facilities," Pray said.

The Energy Department has not announced new timelines for the repository, which is already eight years behind schedule.

Many experts think it could be ready to accept waste by 2015 or 2020.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said pro-repository groups are engaged in wishful thinking because time is running short for Congress to debate a nuclear waste bill this year.

"The whole outlook for them is very bleak," Loux said. "I don't know what tree they are barking up. DOE hasn't even produced a bill yet."