WASHINGTON -- A new bid to "fix Yucca Mountain" took shape on Wednesday when nuclear industry officials unveiled a broad plan to speed the repository, including offering Nevada millions of dollars in a new deal to accept high level radioactive waste.

Written as a draft bill for Congress to consider, the Nuclear Energy Institute proposal would establish interim storage at Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel while the Department of Energy tries to work through delays on a permanent repository.

The proposed benefits for Nevada to host a temporary nuclear waste site would be $25 million a year until it opens, $50 million upon arrival of the first waste shipment, and $50 million annually until the site is closed, presumably upon completion of a comprehensive repository nearby.

Among other provisions, the Nuclear Energy Institute proposal also would set a 10,000 year compliance period for radiation safety at the site, reversing a 2004 federal court ruling that ordered the safety period to be set for thousands of years longer.

The proposed bill drew little immediate interest on Capitol Hill but garnered a strong reaction from Nevadans.

Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Nevada "is not interested" in nuclear waste at any price.

The NEI proposal "is an amazing nuclear industry wish list of everything up to and including the kitchen sink," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "We are taking this very seriously."

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said the pro-repository trade group "is feeling desperate. They have been talking about this for some months. I am not surprised."

With Congress unlikely to pass a Yucca Mountain bill during the remainder of this year's session, authors at the Nuclear Energy Institute said the trade group was staking out a position for when lawmakers return in January for the final two years of industry-friendly President Bush's term.

"The president has been a strong friend of nuclear, and we would certainly like to see legislation advance under his administration rather than an unknown who may be better or may be worse," said Michael Bauser, NEI associate general counsel.

Bauser said the proposed bill "represents an overview of what we see as the more important issues" facing the repository project.

Copies of the proposed bill were distributed Wednesday to industry officials and to select staff members on Capitol Hill who handle energy issues. Immediate reaction in Congress was subdued.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had not examined it, spokeswoman Lisa Miller said.

"Maybe this is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; maybe it's the chamber pot," Miller said. "We haven't looked inside yet."

A copy of the proposal was sent to the Department of Energy, where spokesman Craig Stevens declined to comment on the specifics.

Much in the 28-page draft echoes a Bush administration bill on which House and Senate panels held hearings this summer but generally is considered dormant.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is expected to introduce a separate Yucca Mountain bill before Congress adjourns next week, but it was unclear what would be in it.

The Nuclear Energy Institute bill includes elements of the Bush bill expediting repository licensing, withdrawing 147,000 acres of public land at the Yucca site, removing the repository's 77,000-ton nuclear waste cap, and broadening federal powers on repository-related transportation, water claims and toxic materials management.

While containing all that, the Nuclear Energy Institute plan goes further in several areas:

• It directs the energy secretary to establish a temporary nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, where spent fuel would sit in canisters on "aging pads" awaiting completion of the permanent repository. The bill calls for the interim site to have a minimum capacity of 40,000 metric tons of radioactive spent fuel.

A site application would need to be filed within a year, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be given 18 months to issue a final decision. DOE could begin building a temporary repository as soon as it applies for a license.

The Energy Department also could consider other volunteer sites for interim waste storage.

• Nevada or any volunteer site would be offered payments for hosting the temporary repository.

• It pushes the Energy Department to file a repository license application by Dec. 31, 2007, six months faster than DOE has proposed.

• The bill sets a 10,000 year compliance period for the Department of Energy to show the repository, estimated to open in 2017, would not leak radioactive contaminants into the groundwater.

A federal appeals court in 2004 rejected the 10,000 year standard, ruling that it needed to be rewritten and consistent with recommendations that the compliance period should cover time frames where corroded waste could yield peak doses of radiation.

"This has even less of a chance of passing than the administration's proposal," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This bill just further demonstrates the need for Democrats to regain control of the House so we can put an end to the ongoing flow of bad Yucca Mountain proposals."

Nuclear Energy Institute attorneys are drafting another bill that would further revise Yucca Mountain licensing, Bauser said. The measure would initiate an "adaptive staging" approach in which the repository would be licensed in three steps.

The National Academy of Sciences in 2003 said it might make it easier for the Energy Department to incorporate health and safety improvements as time goes on.