WASHINGTON -- After three months on the job, the new Yucca Mountain director says the project suffers from a "quality problem" that must be fixed before the government tries to license a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site.

"The organization has not developed in my opinion in a way that allows it today to be an appropriate and adequate licensee to advance and operate Yucca Mountain," Ward Sproat said Tuesday. "It will be there before we get a license. It is going to be a long way there."

Sproat, a nuclear industry executive and consultant before he was appointed to the Department of Energy, said the project suffers from "a quality problem in terms of the culture and people and how they view their responsibilities for quality."

"It is time to get this program up to today's standards," he said.

Sproat delivered his tough assessment in a presentation to staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will handle DOE's repository licensing bid.

Some of his remarks echoed independent project reviews by the Government Accountability Office and the DOE inspector general. Those studies have detailed shortcomings in how project managers and workers comply with meticulous rules for data gathering, software development and design controls.

The Energy Department has set a new goal of June 2008 to apply for a license for Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In effect, that gives Sproat two years to turn around the troubled project.

Bob Loux, executive director for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Sproat should be applauded for his candor. Whether he can fix the Yucca project is another matter, Loux added.

"He deserves some kudos for that he is beginning to actually find out what the real problems are with the program," Loux said. "The problem I have is his view that all these things are correctable in the short run."

As part of Sproat's reorganization, the Energy Department on Tuesday invited bids for independent evaluations of Yucca Mountain repository designs, its license application and its efforts to improve quality assurance.

Those reviews will set the stage for further changes, Sproat said.

"I don't suspect you will see the status quo maintained," he said. The studies "are intended to give (the NRC) and the public more confidence that we are not satisfied with where we are and that we are an inquiring organization."

The repository effort was rocked last year with the disclosure that hydrologists working for the U.S. Geological Survey swapped e-mails suggesting that quality assurance documentation had been falsified.

Sproat said Tuesday that a follow-up DOE study is discovering that apparent indifference to quality assurance might be a deeper problem within the project.

"The lack of understanding of the culture is broader than just the narrow pocket of USGS," he said. "Not that it calls into question the accuracy of technical work, but it certainly calls into question the culture of the organization."