WASHINGTON -- A House panel taking the first step in setting 2007 spending for the Energy Department granted President Bush's budget request for Yucca Mountain on Thursday but cut back on the president's plan for nuclear waste reprocessing.

The action by the energy and water subcommittee was the first test of congressional sentiment for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP.

The Bush administration has proposed to develop advanced technology to "recycle" spent nuclear fuel to draw more energy from it and to fit more waste into the Yucca repository that it plans to build in Southern Nevada.

But Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, the subcommittee chairman, said he was not convinced that Congress should move aggressively to put money behind GNEP, which could cost at least $4 billion over the next decade for initial studies and test plants.

"I have serious policy, technical and financial reservations about the GNEP proposal," Hobson said.

"I think we are jumping too fast into this program," he said. "We are putting all our eggs in one basket. I am concerned about that."

The bill written by Hobson and approved by the subcommittee would grant $150 million for initial GNEP spending in 2007. Bush had requested $250 million.

"I don't want to just kill the program because I think there are some technology things in there we ought to take a look at," Hobson said.

The subcommittee's action is the first step in an appropriations process that will wind through the summer and into the fall. The House is expected to take further votes on GNEP, while the Senate will write a corresponding bill. A final bill will be negotiated later this year.

On Yucca Mountain, the House panel appropriated $544.5 million, the amount requested by the Bush administration to continue forming a repository license application, pursue construction of a rail line across rural Nevada and make repairs at the study site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The subcommittee added $30 million to be spent if Congress agrees to authorize the storage of nuclear waste at temporary sites while project work continues at Yucca Mountain.

Hobson is a proponent of interim storage. He said it would allow the Energy Department to avoid $500 million a year in accumulating legal and liability costs and take possession of waste now being kept at power plants.

"I'm trying to move this country forward on nuclear energy, and I don't think we can do it without having interim above-ground nuclear storage facilities," Hobson said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a Yucca Mountain opponent, criticized the panel's support for the repository. Its budget customarily is reduced in the Senate.

"Chairman Hobson can call for more spending on Yucca Mountain until he is blue in the face, but I predict that at the end of the day, funding for this project will be slashed once again," Berkley said.