Cite as: 532 U. S. 645 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
Arizona Highway 64, non-Indian public rights-of-way. Petitioner cannot be said to have consented to such a tax by virtue of its status as an "Indian trader."
Although the Court of Appeals did not reach Montana's second exception, both respondents and the United States argue that the hotel occupancy tax is warranted in light of the direct effects the Cameron Trading Post has upon the Navajo Nation. Again noting the Navajo Nation's provision of tribal services and petitioner's status as an "Indian trader," respondents emphasize that petitioner employs almost 100 Navajo Indians; that the Cameron Trading Post derives business from tourists visiting the reservation; and that large amounts of tribal land surround petitioner's isolated property.11 Although we have no cause to doubt respondents' assertion that the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation possesses an "overwhelming Indian character," Brief for Respondents 13-14, we fail to see how petitioner's operation of a hotel on non-Indian fee land "threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe." Montana, supra, at 566.12
11 The record does not reflect the amount of non-Indian fee land within the Navajo Nation. A 1995 study commissioned by the United States Department of Commerce states that 96.3 percent of the Navajo Nation's 16,224,896 acres is tribally owned, with allotted land comprising 762,749 acres, or 4.7 percent, of the reservation. See Economic Development Administration, V. Tiller, American Indian Reservations and Indian Trust Areas 214 (1995). The 1990 Census reports that that 96.6 percent of residents on the Navajo Nation are Indian. Joint Lodging 182. The Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation, in which petitioner's land lies, has a non-Indian population of 2.3 percent. See id., at 181.
12 Although language in Merrion referred to taxation as "necessary to tribal self-government and territorial management," 455 U. S., at 141, it did not address assertions of tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian fee land. Just as with Montana's first exception, incorporating Merrion's reasoning here would be tantamount to rejecting Montana's general rule. In Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U. S. 438, 459 (1997), we stated that Montana's second exception "can be misperceived." The exception is only triggered by nonmember conduct that threatens the Indian tribe; it does not broadly
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