Nuclear dump application is ready

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Associated Press has learned that the Bush administration, after years of delay, will submit a formal license application on Tuesday to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have three years to review the application.

The Energy Department informed key members of Congress, including Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., of the plan on Monday. A truck is to deliver tens of thousands of pages of documents to the NRC offices in Rockville, Md., Tuesday morning to back up the application.

President Bush gave the go-ahead for the Yucca waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas six years ago. It is being designed to hold 77,000 tons of waste, mostly used reactor fuel from nuclear power plants.