June 19, 1981

When they were planned during the 1960's, the five nuclear power plants under construction in Washington State were considered the most efficient and economical way to provide electrical power for the Pacific Northwest. But now, the nuclear power industry's biggest project is also its biggest headache. Thirteen years after construction began on the first of five plants, none has been completed. Work schedule delays, regulatory snarls, huge cost overruns and financing problems have plagued the project, and its cost has been raised from a projection of $6.6 billion in 1970 to an estimate, released last week, of $23.9 billion.

The United States and Iraq agreed today on a Security Council resolution that ''strongly condemns'' the Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor and urges Israel to open its nuclear plants to international inspection. The draft resolution is expected to be unanimously approved by the Council at Text of draft resolution is on page A10. an open meeting tomorrow, Western diplomats said. This would not mark the first time that the United States has used the word ''condemn'' to describe an Israeli action. In 1968 the Council unanimously condemned Israel's commando raid on Beirut International Airport.

The Treasury Department is reopening an investigation into the role that Norman B. Ture, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Tax and Economic Affairs, played in arranging a Treasury contract for an economic forecasting model that Mr. Ture had developed and partly owned. Details of the investigation into the $230,000 noncompetitive contract arranged earlier this year were supplied by Arnold Intrater, the department's assistant general counsel and a participant in the inquiry. Projections of Tax Impact Earlier, Mr. Ture (pronounced too-RAY) had been cleared by Mr. Intrater and other lawyers in the general counsel's office of any violation of Federal conflict-of-interest laws and regulations. These bar personal financial interests that conflict, or might appear to conflict, with Government duties. The economic forecasting model in question, after some modification, is intended to predict, through a complex system of mathematical equations and concepts, the effects of the Administration's tax policies on the nation's economy. Among other things, such predictions are used to sell those policies to Congress and the public.

The House of Representatives voted today to keep the Legal Services Corporation alive but to slash its funds drastically and impose stringent restrictions on the activities of lawyers financed by the corporation. The 245-to-137 vote to continue the independent, federally financed program for two years represented a rebuff for the Reagan Administration, which wants to abolish the program. But the corporation's supporters said that the reduction of funds, to $241 million a year from the current level of $321 million and some of the restrictions would make it more difficult to serve the needs of the poor. Before the final vote late this afternoon, the House amended the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee to tighten existing restrictions on the representation of illegal aliens and homosexuals. The House voted yesterday to bar federally financed lawyers from bringing class action lawsuits against Federal, state or local government agencies and severely restrict their lobbying activities in Congress and state legislatures.

Associate Justice Potter Stewart announced today that he would retire July 3 after 23 years on the Supreme Court, and the Reagan Administration moved to fill the vacancy before the end of the summer. The unexpected retirement of Justice Stewart, who has often been a swing vote between ideological camps, created the first High Court opening since 1975, as Justice Stewart has seen himself as a lawyer rather than a philosopher, focusing on fact and precedent instead of theory. News analysis, page A14. well as an opportunity for President Reagan to appoint a conservative, as he is expected to do. 'High Priority' to Campaign Vow In the Presidential campaign last year, Mr. Reagan also said he would name a woman to fill ''among the first Supreme Court vacancies in my Administration.'' Today a senior White House aide said that Mr. Reagan would place ''high priority'' on fulfilling that commitment with this appointment, but he cautioned that the pledge ''doesn't guarantee'' that a woman would be found.