Consent and Its Costs: Native American Tribes, the Nuclear Waste Negotiator, and the Limits of Voluntary Siting, 1990–1995

This paper traces the historical development of voluntary-based nuclear waste siting in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. It draws on primary sources including the official records of the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator; archival repositories in Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada; newspapers; and oral history. It argues that voluntary siting, far from offering a neutral participatory framework, systematically displaced the costs of federal credibility onto Native American Tribes. Focusing on negotiations between the ONWN and several Native American Tribes from 1990 to 1995, principally the Mescalero Apache Tribe and Skull Valley Band of Goshute, this paper critically examines the federal effort to develop monitored retrievable storage sites, revealing four key factors underpinning the program’s failure. This analysis provides crucial context for contemporary efforts in consent-based siting for the back-end nuclear fuel cycle.