LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel was considering Wednesday whether to again reject an Energy Department database that supports plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

After three-plus hours of oral back-and-forth between Nevada and Energy Department lawyers, one commission administrative judge concluded that some key information had not been posted on the massive online network set up to let the public see plans for the Yucca Mountain project.

"Some core critical documents have not been made available," Judge Alex Karlin said.

The chairman of the three-judge panel, Thomas Moore, pointed to an analyst's written account of trying to sift information from more than 30 million pages of documents the Energy Department has posted.

The frustrated analyst compared the task to trying to put a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle together from a box containing several million pieces.

A lawyer for the Energy Department urged the three judges to overlook shortcomings and give the commission's stamp of approval to the department's Oct. 19 declaration that the database was complete.

"Obviously, much of our work product is done," lawyer Michael Shebelskie said. "It has to be."

At issue is a digital library containing more than 3.7 million analyses, reports and technical documents on the government's plan to store 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Prompt panel approval is crucial for the Energy Department, which is accelerating its push toward a self-imposed June 30 deadline to submit an application to open and operate the repository.

However, the panel made no immediate decision and set no date for a ruling. A similar board upheld a state challenge of the Energy Department's data base in June 2004, forcing its overhaul.

The commission wants the database complete six months before an application is filed.

It has taken the Energy Department three years and millions of dollars to rework the data base, and Ward Sproat, head of the Yucca Mountain project, has vowed that it's solid.

The Energy Department is years behind schedule and under pressure to open the repository to entomb radioactive waste building up at nuclear power plants around the country. Since Congress picked Yucca Mountain in 2002, the department and its contractors have encountered regulatory, fiscal and political setbacks.

All sides agree the database lacks crucial plans such as environmental risks once the repository is full and a final design for waste containers.

Charles Fitzpatrick, a private lawyer representing the state, told the judges that under those circumstances it was "not good faith and not common sense" to let the Energy Department certify the database as complete.

The database must have all the documents the department intends to rely on, Fitzpatrick said, so the state and other interested parties can evaluate the plans.

The proceedings were the first to be held in a cavernous $4 million courtroom built to accommodate years of hearings expected after the Energy Department submits an application.

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On the Net:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licensing Support Network: http://www.lsnnet.gov

Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste