Opinion ID: 110329
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: White Mountain Apache Tribe

Text: White Mountain Apache Tribe presents a different situation. Petitioner Pinetop Logging Co. operates solely and continuously upon an Indian reservation under its contract with a tribal enterprise. Pinetop's daily operations are controlled by a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme designed to assure the Indian tribes the greatest possible return from their timber. Federal officials direct Pinetop's hauling operations down to such details as choice of equipment, selection of routes, speeds of travel, and dimensions of the loads. Ante, at 146-148. Pinetop does all of the hauling at issue in this case over roads constructed, maintained, and regulated by the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau requires the Tribe and its contractors to repair existing roads and to construct new roads necessary for sustained logging. Pinetop exhausts a large percentage of its gross income in performing these contractual obligations. Ante, at 148. Since the Federal Government, the Tribe, and its contractors are solely responsible for the roads that Pinetop uses, I cannot believe that Congress intended to leave to the State the privilege of levying road use taxes upon Pinetop's operations. See Warren Trading Post, 380 U. S., at 691. The State has no interest in raising revenues from the use of Indian roads that cost it nothing and over which it exercises no control. See Washington v. Confederated Tribes, supra, at 162-164. [3] The addition of these taxes to the road construction and repair expenses that Pinetop already bears also would interfere with the federal scheme for maintaining roads essential to successful Indian timbering. See 380 U. S., at 691. The Tribe or its contractors would pay twice for use of the same roads. This double exaction could force federal officials to reallocate work from non-Indian contractors to the tribal enterprise itself or to make costly concessions to the contractors. I therefore join the Court in concluding that this case is in all relevant respects indistinguishable from Warren Trading Post. Ante, at 153.