The document federal law required for the Thacker Pass lithium mine was never signed by the tribe living 40 miles away

What the tribe actually signed

In October 2022, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe signed a Community Benefits Agreement, a private contract between a company and a community rather than something federal law requires, with Lithium Americas Corp, the company building the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Humboldt County, Nevada. The reservation sits about 40 miles from the mine. The agreement commits the company to build an 8,000 square foot community center and to offer training, employment and support for cultural education. The original announcement named no dollar total. A year later, a company officer put a number on it.

There is an initial investment that we're making that's north of $5 million,

Tim Crowley, vice president of government affairs for Lithium Americas. Source 2.

What federal law actually required

The National Historic Preservation Act, a law that protects historic and cultural sites from harm by federal projects, required the Bureau of Land Management to consult nearby tribes and sign a Memorandum of Agreement, a formal agreement between government offices setting out how the mine would treat historic properties, with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. The agency opened formal consultation with the Fort McDermitt Tribe, the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and the Winnemucca Indian Colony on December 12 2019, and signed that Memorandum of Agreement on November 5 2020, 329 days later. The Fort McDermitt Tribe was invited only as a concurring party, meaning it could add its name in support, not required to sign before the agreement took effect. The tribe did not sign it.

The order these events happened in

The Bureau of Land Management issued its Record of Decision, the formal document approving the mine, on January 15 2021, 400 days after consultation opened. The Fort McDermitt Tribe did not raise cultural, historical or religious concerns about the Thacker Pass site itself in writing until May 4 2021, 509 days after consultation opened and 109 days after the mine had already been approved. The agency later agreed to hire tribal members as monitors on the site.

The federal money now riding on the project

The mine now carries a second, separate set of promises, made to the federal government rather than to the tribe. The United States Department of Energy closed a 2.26 billion dollar loan for Thacker Pass construction in October 2024, made up of 1.97 billion dollars of principal and 289.7 million dollars of capitalized interest, meaning interest added onto the loan balance rather than billed separately during construction. The department expects the project to create 1,800 jobs during construction and 360 in operations, with a stated priority for local and Native American workers. It says the finished plant could supply enough lithium for up to 800,000 electric vehicles a year, avoiding 317,000,000 gallons of gasoline annually.

What the benefits agreement does not change

None of that money has changed what the reservation looks like today. Median household income at the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation is 16,477 dollars, more than 53,000 dollars below the United States average, according to Census data reported by Canary Media. Not everyone on the reservation agrees the benefits agreement answers that gap. The Community Benefits Agreement offers money and buildings. It never gave the tribe a legal way to stop the mine, and the approval that let it proceed issued before the tribe raised its own cultural concerns about the site in writing.

They don't care. That's all they're talking about, is this money, money, money. They're not thinking about the Indian people around here,

Arnold Sam, a tribal elder at Fort McDermitt. Source 2.