Byron White

“ The United States has granted to many Indian tribes, including the Yakima Nation-"a power unknown to any other sovereignty in this Nation: a power to exclude nonmembers entirely from territory reserved for the tribe." ”

“ Montana should therefore not be understood to vest zoning authority in the tribe when fee land is used in certain ways. The governing principle is that the tribe has no authority itself, by way of tribal ordinance or actions in the tribal courts, to regulate the use of fee land. The inquiry thus becomes whether, and to what extent, the tribe has a protectible interest in what activities are taking place on fee land within the reservation and, if it has such an interest, how it may be protected. ”

“ Just as it is neither possible nor appropriate in these cases to set a fixed percentage of fee ownership that will govern every case that may arise, so is it impossible to articulate precise rules that will govern whenever a tribe asserts that a land use approved by a county board is pre-empted by federal law. ”

“ Although Montana, supra, 450 U.S., at 566, 101 S.Ct., at 1258, recognized, as an exception to its general principle, that a tribe "may" retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the tribe's political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare, that exception does not create tribal authority to zone reservation lands. ”

“ Through the 1855 treaty, which was ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by President Buchanan in 1859, the Yakima Nation ceded to the United States millions of acres of land east of the main ridge of the Cascade Mountains in exchange for the guarantee that a defined area of approximately 1.3 million acres would be reserved from the ceded lands "for the use and occupation of the aforesaid confederated tribes and bands of Indians." ”

“ Approximately 1.3 million acres of land are located within its boundaries. Of that land, roughly 80% is held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Yakima Nation or individual members of the Tribe. The remaining 20% of the land is owned in fee by Indian or non-Indian owners. Most of the fee land is found in Toppenish, Wapato, and Harrah, the three incorporated towns located in the northeastern part of the reservation. The remaining fee land is scattered throughout the reservation in a "checkerboard" pattern. ”

“ Hence, a community reasonably might conclude that a factory has no place in an otherwise exclusively residential section or that an amusement park does not belong in an area devoted to quiet parks, libraries, and schools. ”

“ The Tribe's treaty rights must be read in light of those subsequent alienations, it being unlikely that Congress intended to subject non-Indian purchasers to tribal jurisdiction when an avowed purpose of the allotment policy was to destroy tribal government. ”

“ The fee lands located in the closed area are zoned by the county ordinance as forest watershed. That designation permits development of single-family dwellings, commercial campgrounds, small overnight lodging facilities, restaurants, bars, general stores and souvenir shops, service stations, marinas, and sawmills. The minimum lot size is one-half acre. None of these uses would be permitted by the zoning designation "reservation restricted area," which applies to the closed area under the Yakima Nation zoning ordinance. ”

“ Such sovereignty generally extends only to what is necessary to protect tribal selfgovernment or to control internal relations, and is divested to the extent it is inconsistent with a tribe's dependent status i.e., to the extent it involves the tribe's external relations with nonmembers-unless there has been an express congressional delegation of tribal power to the contrary. ”

“ Access to the open area, as its name suggests, is not likewise restricted to the general public. The open area is primarily rangeland, agricultural land, and land used for residential and commercial development. ”