Tooele County signs a contract May 23, 2000, with Private Fuel Storage, based on assurances that the nuclear storage site would bring in between $90 million and $300 million in economic benefits.
PFS and tribal leaders sue the state in federal court Dec. 12, 2001, over passage of five laws intended to block the project. The state lost and has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
New leadership emerges out of an August 2001 tribal election, but the election's authenticity is disputed.
Rep. Jim Hansen pushes a bill through the House of Representatives in 2002 aimed at creating a wilderness area around the Skull Valley reservation, blocking shipments to the facility. The bill fails in the Senate. Similar proposals have met the same fate. A new version is pending.
It is revealed in 2002 that a former Idaho congressman and Utah Republican Party chairman quietly explored "Plan B," an alternative to store nuclear waste on Utah school trust lands. It is
dropped.
Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett in July 2002 cut a deal with the White House to vote in favor of storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev., arguing that storing it there makes it less likely it will have to be stored in Utah.
FBI agents in April 2003 raid the Salt Lake City business offices of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, confiscating computers and financial records as part of an ongoing corruption scandal.
Tribal Chairman Leon Bear is indicted Dec. 18, 2003, by a federal grand jury on suspicion of embezzling money from the band and for reporting to the IRS that he is unemployed while accepting $192,316 in payments from the tribe. He later pleads guilty to the tax charges and is sentenced to fines and probation.
Energy Department transportation official Gary Lanthrum in October 2004 says the agency won't accept for shipment to Yucca Mountain any welded-shut waste containers from PFS.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on Feb. 24, 2005, rules against the last of Utah's 125 objections to the PFS plan - the state's contention that the possibility of an F-16 crash poses too great a risk.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday approves a license for PFS on a 3-1 vote.
