LINCOLN ? Former Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson denied in federal court Monday that he acted “deranged” in an attempt to block construction of a regional nuclear waste dump in his state.

Nelson, now a U.S. senator, also denied that he wanted to “create noise and difficulty” for the site’s developer, U.S. Ecology.

Nelson’s testimony came in the trial about whether the state acted in bad faith in refusing to license a regional nuclear waste dump in Boyd County. The site near Butte, along the South Dakota border, was meant to store low-level radioactive waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Nelson was asked by attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the four states suing Nebraska, about notes former policy research office staff member Kate Allen made during a 1992 meeting that Nelson attended with dump opponents.

Allen’s notes said Nelson wanted the site’s developer to think he was deranged and make the process difficult for U.S. Ecology.

“Did you have a strategy of seeking a pose to be deranged?” Peterson asked Nelson.

“Not in my line of work,” Nelson said.

Nelson, who served as governor from 1991 to 1999 and was elected to the Senate in 2000, has been accused of trying to block licensing of the site in 1998.

Nelson testified for 3 1/2 hours, explaining that he sometimes used the word “deranged” in a different context.

He said he told staff members to do careful work because “you never knew when you may be followed by a deranged governor.”

“My administration acted entirely appropriately,” Nelson said.