LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada is asking a federal court to throw out new Environmental Protection Agency radiation exposure limits for a planned nuclear waste dump northwest of Las Vegas.

State Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed a lawsuit Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia alleging the EPA standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository won't protect the environment or the health of Nevadans.

The state says the EPA shouldn't set separate "near term" and "long term" limits for radiation emissions from the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The federal agency last week set a 15 millirem radiation exposure standard for the first 10,000 years after nuclear waste is entombed, and 100 millirems thereafter.

A normal chest X-ray exposes people to about 10 millirems of radiation.

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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-10-10-08 1542EDT