WASHINGTON -- Four officials expected to influence the future of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site were installed in key posts Friday by the Senate.

The Senate confirmations unclogged personnel impasses at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, enabling the Bush administration to move forward on nuclear power initiatives including the proposed Nevada repository.

Edward "Ward" Sproat, a nuclear industry executive from Pennsylvania, was approved as director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management at the Energy Department. The post makes him head of the Yucca Mountain Project.

Dale Klein, a Defense Department assistant secretary, was confirmed to a five-year term as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will decide the safety of a Yucca repository based on an application expected at some point from DOE.

Gregory Jaczko and Peter Lyons, who had been serving on the five-member NRC on temporary appointments, were extended to full terms.

Frank "Skip" Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the NRC appointments will allow the agency to work toward licensing new nuclear power plants "that will expand nuclear energy's role as a key component of the U.S. energy portfolio."

The NRC officials were approved in a deal between the Bush administration, Senate Republicans and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., congressional officials said.

Klein, a nuclear waste expert and former University of Texas professor and associate dean, was opposed by some officials in Nevada because he appeared in a series of television commercials funded by the nuclear industry during a Yucca Mountain public relations drive in the early 1990s.

Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., allowed Klein's appointment to go forward after a meeting this week in which the nominee pledged to be objective in weighing the proposed repository. The deal also allowed Reid to win full appointment for Jaczko, his former science adviser who handled Yucca Mountain matters. Lyons is a former aide to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The Nevada senators concluded that they were not going to be happy with almost anybody the pro-Yucca Bush administration proposed for the NRC, and they accepted Klein to cement Jaczko's post, Senate sources said.

"For that spot that Klein has, we are not going to get someone who says they hate Yucca Mountain," Reid said in an interview Wednesday. "The best we can get is somebody who will say they have an open mind, and (Klein) said that."

Reid had blocked Sproat's confirmation since last November but removed his hold a week or so ago, spokeswoman Sharyn Stein said. That came after DOE agreed to give Reid a full copy of its investigation report into the Yucca Mountain e-mail scandal.

A redacted copy of the report made public this month explored allegations that hydrologists with the U.S. Geological Survey authored e-mails discussing possible quality assurance document falsification at the site.