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Utah's political bigwigs have for eight years fought a plan to bring high-level nuclear waste to the desert just beyond the heart of the state's population centers.
But missing from the chorus has been one voice of authority: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Until now.
Church leaders spoke up after federal regulators Friday signed off on the waste plan. For an institution that has remained staunchly, if enigmatically, silent on the issue for so long, the words were strong:
"We regret [the] decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to authorize the issuance of a license that would allow storage of radioactive waste in Skull Valley. Storage of nuclear waste in Utah is a matter of significant public interest that requires thorough scrutiny."
Maryann Webster, a member of Utah's dominant church, has petitioned leaders for years. She knew their influence helped keep the MX missile out of Utah. She hoped they would agree it would be a shame to welcome most of the nation's used reactor rods just an hour's drive from the church's world headquarters.
"The church is the only political entity in the state powerful enough to defend us," she said. "I hope they will speak more strongly and work to prevent it."
In the wake of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision Friday to license the nuclear storage, waste opponents hope their new apparent ally will change the conversation from that of who is to blame for a strategy that has failed so far, to that of how they get on a winning course.
The aim is to defeat a plan by a group of utilities, Private Fuel Storage LLC, to lease land on a tribal reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City for storing up to 44,000 tons of used reactor fuel. By teaming up with the Skull Valley Goshutes, the company has co-opted the neighbors and their government.
Utahns hate the idea. In a 2002 poll, 87 percent said they opposed the NRC license.
The opposition is not surprising. Utah has no nuclear plants. Utahns already live with military installations handling chemical and biological arms. Many have lost a family member to illness caused by uranium mining or simply living downwind of atomic weapons tests.
And now, with the license granted Friday, Skull Valley is the first U.S. license to be granted for a high-level facility in more than three decades.
Some blame greed.
PFS has promised the Skull Valley Band's 121 members - whose incomes are below poverty level - hundreds of millions of dollars to take part in the multibillion-dollar waste project. In return, it enjoys protection under the band's sovereign status, immune to Utah's complaints and free to collect rent from other companies for its storage pads.
"Who but the companies and the band benefits?" complained Michael S. Lee, chief counsel for Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. and leader of the state government's opposition to the site.
The NRC made its decision after eight years of reviewing the state's objections, more than 50 of them. Some were simply thrown out on procedural grounds. Others, like the potential impact of earthquakes and a jet-fighter crash, became fodder for years of in-depth debate.
Lee and other state leaders have said that, while disappointed with the NRC's decision, they can't wait to raise Utah's concerns in a different forum - U.S. District Court - because the NRC gives the nuclear industry a home-court advantage. He noted the state will continue its three-pronged approach, fighting the site in the courts, federal agencies and before Congress.
Former Rep. Jim Hansen still sees the U.S. Capitol as Utah's best hope. He says his bill to block the waste site's rail route with wilderness would have succeeded a few years ago if an environmentalist had not stymied the move.
"If he had just given up," Hansen said, "[the waste] would have been going to Yucca Mountain by now."
The bill is being carried this year by Hansen's successor, Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop. It has passed in the House but stalled once again in the Senate.
"I don't know that it can be done, but we are going to keep trying," said U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, also a Republican.
Others wonder if the state has burned an important bridge in Congress.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL), notes that a deep rift divides Utah's mostly Republican delegation and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the influential U.S. Senate minority leader. It sprouted from a historic vote three summers ago that made it possible for the federal government to pursue the Yucca Mountain repository over that state's bitter objections.
Groenewold said Hatch and fellow Utah Republican Bob Bennett fumbled by voting to speed the waste to Yucca Mountain - past Skull Valley - rather than hanging with the Nevadans.
"It may be time to change strategies," said Groenewold. "And we hope that Senators Bennett and Hatch will work with our allies in the West rather than alienating them."
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a liberal who is frequently a target of Utah's Republican majority, says leaders need to be prodded to action.
"My greatest hope is that we don't all stand around like a bunch of sheep waiting for the slaughter," he said after the license decision, "but that we rise up and let our elected federal officials know that we are very displeased with this."
In Nevada, the strategy that has worked for more than 20 years is having a unified opposition, says Eric Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.
He notes that there is a split in Utah that does not exist in Nevada, with the Goshutes welcoming the waste and others opposing it.
"Within the state [of Nevada]," he said, "there is really only one side."
Along with the LDS Church's statement Friday, there are other signs that Utah leaders may be able to pull together behind the cause after all.
On Friday, the state's congressional delegation, including its lone Democrat, renewed its lobbying effort at the U.S. Interior Department. The Interior secretary supervises two federal agencies that have something PFS needs in order to go forward with its plans: a rail spur through land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and a final lease that requires the approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Bennett, in a statement, noted there remain a number of legal issues "that stand between granting a license and operating" the site. "These legal issues will be raised and aggressively pursued by all members of the congressional delegation and our governor."
Bishop, in Utah's U.S. House delegation, offered a philosophical take Friday, saying the state "never had a great hand to play in the first place."
"I just keep reminding myself," he said, "in every Rocky movie, he loses every round until he wins by a knockout in the end."
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Tribune reporter Heather May contributed to this story.