A confidentiality clause prevents financial specifics from being revealed, but most presume the facility would generate millions of dollars every year for the the band over the 25-year lease. But the unpopular plan has drawn sharp criticism from politicians, the public and other tribes. In the late 1990s, singers and drummers from the Shoshone Nation performed at the Utah Capitol in a protest over the proposal.

Just this month, the U.S. Department of Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs drove what some say is the final nail in the coffin when they denied a land lease to Private Fuel Storage.

Tribal Chairman Leon Bear sees that as wresting from the tribe its right to self-determination.

"If what they say is true in the decision, I think it's an attack on our sovereignty," he said. The tribe will keep fighting.

"If they have the final say, they should just go ahead and take over the reservation and manage it for us," Bear said. "We are a people out here, and we should be able to decide our own fate."

"It's about the emerging generation and doing what's necessary for them." — Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Aside from the controversial nuclear storage issue, most tribal officials say there has never been a more favorable climate for tribes in Utah, and Huntsman gets much of the praise for this phenomenon.

The governor has been a stronger advocate for Indian rights and issues than any administration in the state's history, says Brigham Young University law professor Larry EchoHawk, himself a member of the Pawnee Tribe and Idaho's former attorney general.

In fact, Huntsman pledged early in his tenure to visit each of Utah's five Indian reservations to meet with tribal leaders about issues, and he has done so.

In May, Huntsman traveled to Cedar City to meet with the Paiute Tribe. His staff and tribal elders brainstormed better methods for teaching Paiute children, how to improve the business culture within the tribe and how to get a suicide prevention program off the ground.

It was the first time a Utah governor had met with the tribe.

"He sat there for two hours and talked to those people," said Cuch, director of Utah's Division of Indian Affairs. "We were so impressed with that."

In August, Huntsman attended the quarterly Navajo tribal council meetings, where concerns of Utah's 8,000 Navajos are addressed.

"I doubt there's been a governor that has ever addressed the Navajo Nation," EchoHawk said. "The tribe believes that is very important."

The state and tribe believe they share common interests.

"We are all on the same side. We are all human beings. Why we go up against each other sometimes, it's baffling," said Joe Shirley, president of the massive Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.