EDITORIAL\Another flip-flop\Clinton administration plays politics in stalling the Ward Valley\nuclear disposal site.

THE decision by the Clinton administration to hold up the proposed Ward Valley disposal site for low-level nuclear wastes is a blatant example of election-year politics.

It's now obvious that the Interior Department never intended to keep its promise to approve the project if that meant losing the support of noisy environmentalists hysterically opposed to it.

The long-sought transfer of land owned by the Bureau of Land Management to the operator of the proposed Mojave Desert facility, U.S. Ecology, was delayed Wednesday on the grounds that more information is needed.

But the project has been studied to death. The state's decision to issue a license for the Ward Valley facility was just upheld last month by the state Supreme Court.

What's more important, though, is that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt agreed to the transfer last May after the project received a favorable report from the National Academy of Sciences.

Babbitt had rejected demands by opponents for more time-consuming hearings, saying, "I became convinced that the National Academy of Sciences was best equipped to shed light on the highly technical questions that were being raised."

Babbitt, responding to a concern of the academy, required the state to conduct tests for tritium, a radioactive isotope. The state agreed to the tests. But the stalling had just begun (notwithstanding what Babbitt said about relying on the academy for advice).

The Interior Department, under fire from environmentalists outraged by the secretary's initial decision, kept raising more objections, some of them involving such remote matters as the Endangered Species Act and sacred Indian sites.

Finally, the Wilson administration persuaded Congress to include the Ward Valley transfer in a budget bill. But President Clinton vetoed the bill in December, claiming with a straight face that the conveyance would be "without public safeguards."

But what the obstructionists both within and without the administration either overlook or deliberately ignore is that the uncoordinated methods of storing low-level radioactive wastes being used now are risky. It's far safer to put these wastes in well-planned disposal sites - especially one that has received favorable marks from the Academy of Sciences.

Such facilities - which have been mandated by Congress - are needed to serve hospitals, research laboratories and high-tech industries. Thus jobs as well as public safety are at stake.

We praised Babbitt in a June 2, 1995, editorial, saying that "(he) is being accused of bowing to the nuclear industry, but we think he should take a bow for his good judgment."

It's now clear that we were mistaken, both about Babbitt's judgment and his intentions.