Renting out a patch of desert for a storage site has been considered elsewhere. A storage site consists of a thick concrete pad covered with steel and concrete casks, and surrounded by bright lights and razor wire, looking a little like a basketball court at a maximum-security prison. Some Midwestern utilities struck a deal with the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indian tribe at their reservation 70 miles west of Salt Lake City, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed the spot, but the State of Utah blocked waste from being shipped there. The Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico also negotiated for a deal, but then backed away.

In Loving’s case, two lawyers in Austin, Monty G. Humble and Bill Jones, raised the idea with Gov. Rick Perry, who Mr. Humble said was “not opposed,” and then went shopping for a county that would be interested. They argued that two counties in New Mexico, Eddy and Lea, were another possibility, and that if the waste were taken there that the New Mexico counties would get all the benefit but Loving would get some of the risk.

The lawyers told the commissioners and other county officials, “If it isn’t here, it will be in New Mexico,” said Domino Banwart, the county treasurer. The lawyers told the group, “Either way, y’all are getting it,” she said.

Mr. Humble, who specializes in energy topics, and Bill Jones, who was Mr. Perry’s first general counsel, formed a company, Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiatives, and have been negotiating with a landowner in the county. The county has designated the two as its agents in Austin, and the two are seeking the same designation from the State of Texas in order to negotiate with the Department of Energy over terms of a lease, including research grants to Texas universities, new roads and emergency equipment for towns in the area.