A letter dated June 29, signed by Carbon County’s three commissioners and addressed to the state Trust Lands board, backed Valar Atomics. “We are in favor of this project and would appreciate your approval of allowing them to locate there,” it says. [1]
On September 17 the board approved a 50-year lease of state trust land about five miles north of Wellington for Valar, with an option to buy it. [1, 2] The board’s staff showed the letter on a slide at that meeting, and its written recommendation pointed to the county’s support: “the Carbon County Commission is strongly supportive of the proposed project and has provided a letter of support to the Board.” [1, 3]
The commission held nine regular meetings between May 6 and September 16. Their posted agendas and minutes, as of November 4, do not mention the letter or record any motion or vote on it. [4] We transcribed recordings of all nine of those meetings by computer and searched the transcripts; they do not mention it either. The sound on the May 6 recording cuts out in places. [5]
The county’s own record on such letters is mixed. In October 2024 it voted, on an agenda item, to approve a letter of support for a state land exchange. [6] In December 2024 the minutes record the deputy county attorney saying, of a request that was not on the agenda, “we cannot act upon this today because it was not on the agenda but they can offer a letter of support.” [7] In March 2025 a commissioner said the county had sent one for a proposed coal mine; we found no vote approving it in county minutes from October 2022 to September 2026. [8] Next door, Emery County’s commission voted 3-0 on an agenda item on February 17 to approve its own letter of support to Valar Atomics. [9]
The Carbon letter runs seven sentences. It spells the company’s name wrong, gives no section number, lease number or acreage, and says nothing about safety. The case it makes is about taxes: Valar would “lighten the tax burden on our local property owners.” [1]
The board’s staff, by contrast, listed “Federal oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)” under “Safeguards” on its slides at both board meetings. [3, 10] Valar joined a lawsuit against the NRC in April 2025, challenging how the agency defines the facilities it licenses; its claims were still pending, with the parties conferring on possible settlement terms, in the latest filing we could obtain, from September 2. [11, 12, 13, 14] On August 10, ten days before the lease first came before the full board, Valar told the NRC it intends “to pursue NRC licensing of its HTGR technology for future commercial deployment,” though no application date had been set. [15, 16]
More on Valar’s lawsuit: [Utah’s Two Positions on the NRC](../nrc-lawsuit/).
The commissioners have backed Valar in public, too. On July 1, two days after the letter’s date, the commission’s minutes record them celebrating the company’s Emery County reactor reaching criticality, in announcements before the agenda. [17] At the Trust Lands board on September 17, Commissioner Larry Jensen said that “as a commission, we’re very supportive” of Valar. He called the topic “a hot button now, along with data centers,” and said “there are a few who will push back, but the silent majority are the ones that we really represent. And we feel like they will be supportive of this as they’re educated and learn how safe this process is.” [18, 0:26:15, 0:26:34, 0:27:02 to 0:27:17]
Utah’s open meetings law says a public body may not take final action on a topic in an open meeting unless the topic is on the agenda and in the advance public notice, emergencies aside. The law does not define “final action” or say whether signing a letter is one. [19, 20]
## Sources
Trust Lands board
1. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board of Trustees meeting packet, September 17, 2026 (Item 10A memorandum on SULA 2095-OBA; Appendix A, Carbon County letter of support, PDF page 28). PDF.
2. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board of Trustees meeting minutes (final), September 17, 2026. PDF.
3. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board meeting presentation, September 17, 2026 (slide 30, “Carbon County’s Support”; slide 34, “Safeguards”). PDF.
10. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board meeting presentation, August 20, 2026 (slide 49, “Safeguards”). PDF.
16. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board of Trustees meeting minutes (final), August 20, 2026 (Item 9A). PDF.
18. Utah Trust Lands Administration, Board of Trustees meeting recording, September 17, 2026. audio.
Carbon County Commission
4. Carbon County Commission, posted agendas and minutes, May 6 to September 16, 2026, and its notice list on the Utah Public Notice Website, read November 4, 2026. notice list.
5. Carbon County Commission, meeting videos of the nine regular meetings, May 6 to September 16, 2026 (the county’s video channel).
6. Carbon County Commission, minutes, October 16, 2024 (page 3, item 7). PDF.
7. Carbon County Commission, minutes, December 18, 2024 (page 5). PDF.
8. Carbon County Commission, minutes, March 19, 2025 (page 1). PDF.
17. Carbon County Commission, minutes, July 1, 2026. PDF.
Other public bodies
9. Emery County Commission, minutes, February 17, 2026 (item 17). document.
Valar Atomics and the NRC
11. Valar Atomics, “The Nuclear Necessity and our decision to sue the Nuclear Regulatory Commission” (Isaiah Taylor), April 7, 2025. valaratomics.com.
12. Texas v. NRC, No. 6:24-cv-00507 (E.D. Tex.), First Amended Complaint, ECF No. 10, filed April 7, 2025. PDF.
13. Texas v. NRC, No. 6:24-cv-00507 (E.D. Tex.), Order, ECF No. 54, signed July 10, 2026. PDF.
14. Last Energy, Inc. et al. v. NRC, No. 6:24-cv-00507 (E.D. Tex.), Joint Status Report, ECF No. 57, filed September 2, 2026. PDF.
15. Valar Atomics Inc., Submittal of Regulatory Engagement Plan, Revision 1 (cover letter, August 10, 2026), NRC ADAMS ML26224A415. PDF.
Utah law
19. Utah Code 52-4-202. le.utah.gov.
20. Utah Code Title 52, Chapter 4, Open and Public Meetings Act. PDF.