LINCOLN, NEB. ? A five-state, low-level nuclear waste commission wants a stay lifted on the $151 million judgment against Nebraska for its failure to build a regional waste dump.

If the stay is not lifted, the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission wants the federal court to order Nebraska to post a bond equal to the judgment amount, plus interest.

Commission attorneys claim the state is no longer entitled to an unbonded stay because of actions the Legislature and governor took in April “to weaken the statutory means of promptly enforcing judgments against the state.”

The measure was 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.

While the case has been on appeal, interest on the $151 million judgment has accrued since 2002 at a rate of 1.68 percent or about $7,000 a day.

If the federal judge were to remove the stay before the new law goes into effect on July 16, the state would be locked into paying a 10 percent interest rate.

Assistant Atty. Gen. David Cookson said the state was preparing a response to the compact’s argument and would submit it next week.

In February, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Nebraska acted in bad faith by blocking the regional compact from building a dump in the state.

The ruling upheld a decision two years ago by U.S District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln.

On April 22, the state learned its request for a rehearing before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had been rejected.

Johanns has said it would be worthwhile to take the lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The dump was to hold waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, which in 1983 formed the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.