LINCOLN, NEB. ? A judge on Tuesday refused to lift the stay on the $151 million judgment against Nebraska for its failure to build a regional nuclear waste dump within its borders.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, of Lincoln, was asked to lift the stay by the five-state group that wanted to build the dump for low-level radioactive waste in Boyd County.

Kopf also denied a request that Nebraska post a bond for the money until the dispute winds its way through the courts.

Lawyers for the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission argued that the state was no longer entitled to an unbonded stay because of a measure passed earlier this year by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mike Johanns on April 15.

It reduced the interest rate Nebraska pays on judgments from 10 percent to a flexible rate that changes with a U.S. Treasury note yield.

The dump was to hold waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Many feared that the Legislature would need to meet in a special session if Kopf had lifted the stay or ordered Nebraska to post a bond.

Kopf said he refused to lift the stay because Nebraska could still appeal the judgment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It has been clear throughout this litigation that the losing party was likely to petition the Supreme Court,” Kopf wrote in his order.

A three-judge 8th Circuit panel upheld a 2002 ruling by Kopf that the state acted in bad faith to block the compact from building the dump in Nebraska.