Thacker PassAmnesty found consent never sought at 3 Nevada lithium mines.
The US Bureau of Land Management permitted Thacker Pass in under a year, treating unanswered letters to COVID-closed tribal offices as non-objection.
Rhyolite Ridge holds a $1 billion Energy Department loan with no consent agreement from Northern Paiute communities.
Sources: Inkstick
WHAT FPIC MEANS
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent is the standard codified in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Free of coercion, prior to any approval, informed by full disclosure — and crucially, requiring actual consent, not just consultation.
CONSULTATION VS CONSENT
US federal law requires agencies to consult tribes under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and Executive Order 13175. Consultation means notify and discuss. Consent means the tribe can say no. The gap between the two is where every modern extractive conflict sits.
THE PAIUTE-SHOSHONE HOMELAND
Thacker Pass — Peehee Mu'huh, 'rotten moon' — is the site of an 1865 US Cavalry massacre of Paiute people. The land was never ceded by treaty; it was taken by executive order after the killing. Modern federal land in northern Nevada sits atop unresolved aboriginal title that the courts have repeatedly declined to revisit.
WHY LITHIUM, WHY NOW
The Inflation Reduction Act (2022) ties EV tax credits to domestic critical-mineral sourcing. China refines roughly two-thirds of the world's lithium. Nevada holds the largest known US lithium deposits — which turns every Paiute-Shoshone burial ground in the Great Basin into a national-security asset on paper.
THE LOAN AS LEVERAGE
The Energy Department's Loan Programs Office issued a $1bn conditional commitment to Rhyolite Ridge before any FPIC process. Once federal financing is staked, the political cost of pulling permits becomes prohibitive — the consent process runs after the decision has effectively been made.
THE BERING STRAIT PRECEDENT
In the Doctrine of Discovery (Johnson v. M'Intosh, 1823), Chief Justice Marshall ruled that European 'discovery' extinguished indigenous title to all but a right of occupancy. The Catholic Church formally repudiated the doctrine in 2023; US property law still rests on it.