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Plans for a national repository for spent nuclear fuel could suffer a blow under an Obama Administration, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying the new president will cut off funding for the proposed facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Reid, D-Nev., in a video clip posted on his congressional Web site Wednesday, says funding for the project will face a substantial cut in the current federal budget, while receiving "zero or very close to it" in next year's budget.

"It's basically all through," said Reid, a leading opponent of the project in his home state.

His comments come as the nuclear industry awaits details on how President-elect Barack Obama will address the thorny issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste. Obama's transition office didn't return a call Thursday for comment.

The U.S. government had planned to begin hauling spent fuel from the nation's nuclear power plants and burying it at Yucca more than a decade ago. Environmental and political concerns have delayed its opening. Officials have said the earliest the repository could be in operation would be 2020, assuming sufficient funding.

The storage facility is already experiencing a funding squeezed from Congress, but a complete elimination of money would be a major blow, said Christopher Tierney of the Kenrich Group, a Washington D.C. consulting firm whose focus includes the nuclear industry.

"This would be a huge development for it to be cut off entirely," he said.

Reid in the video clip said nuclear plants should continue to store spent fuel on site using existing methods. The industry contends the federal government is responsible for long-term storage of the waste with an underground repository being the safest method.

The Bush Administration last year applied for a license for Yucca, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review expected to take at least three years. About $31 billion has been set aside for the project, collected mostly through electricity rates.

The nuclear industry remains optimistic about its future under the new administration, bolstered this week by comments made by Steven Chu, Obama's nominee for energy secretary, at his confirmation hearing, said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. But Keeley said the industry awaits details on how the Obama Administration plans to address storage.

-By Mark Peters, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4604; mark.peters@dowjones.com

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