WASHINGTON -- A panel of federal judges has thrown out one of Nevada's lawsuits on the Yucca Mountain Project, dismissing it on technical grounds.

The lawsuit sought to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change a regulation that presumes a nuclear waste repository will be open and operating by 2025.

Nevada attorneys told a three-judge panel in a Sept. 14 hearing that the so called "waste confidence" rule would bias the NRC in favor of approving the repository being planned for Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But the judges, sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, dismissed the case in an unpublished ruling filed Sept. 22.

They said it was too early for the state to claim it would be harmed from NRC licensing matters that might take place years from now.

Despite the lawsuit being dismissed, the state found something to like in how the judges framed their two-page ruling, said Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects.

In the decision, the court said the waste-confidence rule "has no legal effect in the anticipated Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding." Loux maintained the statement affirmed the state's position even though the lawsuit was dismissed.

"We got what we wanted, that the rule has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain," Loux said.