PORTLAND – Maine’s congressional delegation moved swiftly to quash the notion that nuclear waste could be stored on the site of shuttered bases if the Pentagon succeeds in closing the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and scaling back the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

The idea has been circulating since the U.S. House of Representatives passed a spending bill for energy and water development.

Tucked in the bill is $15.5 million in funding for reprocessing nuclear waste from power plants and building an interim nuclear waste dump. The bill does not specify where the temporary dump would be, but a report attached to the bill suggests the Department of Energy investigate other federally owned sites, including closed military bases.

Maine officials, who are in the midst of fighting to keep military jobs in Maine, said any plans for the bases are premature.

Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, called the provision “crazy” and stated emphatically that there would be no such site in Maine.

“This is an outrageous suggestion,” Allen said Tuesday. “First of all, no bases have been closed yet. I think more likely than not, this is coming from members of Congress who haven’t been able to solve the Yucca Mountain issue yet.”

The federal government has chosen Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a central, permanent nuclear waste repository. But various legal challenges and other problems have delayed the opening of Yucca Mountain until at least 2010.

In the meantime, the government has stored its nuclear waste at 129 interim sites scattered around the country.

Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the senator would never allow the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to be converted into a repository for nuclear waste.

“The possibility of having a nuclear waste repository there is reprehensible,” Ferrier said.

Her sentiments were echoed by representatives of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said the senator would vigorously oppose any efforts to put a nuclear waste facility in Maine.