360
Opinion of the Court
members, cautioned that "[t]o be sure, Indian tribes retain inherent sovereign power to exercise some forms of civil jurisdiction over non-Indians on their reservations, even on non-Indian fee lands," 450 U. S., at 565—clearly implying that the general rule of Montana applies to both Indian and non-Indian land. The ownership status of land, in other words, is only one factor to consider in determining whether regulation of the activities of nonmembers is "necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations." It may sometimes be a dispositive factor. Hitherto, the absence of tribal ownership has been virtually conclusive of the absence of tribal civil jurisdiction; with one minor exception, we have never upheld under Montana the extension of tribal civil authority over nonmembers on non-Indian land. Compare, e. g., Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U. S. 130, 137, 142 (1982) (tribe has taxing authority over tribal lands leased by nonmembers), with Atkinson Trading Co. v. Shirley, 532 U. S. 645, 659 (2001) (tribe has no taxing authority over nonmembers' activities on land held by nonmembers in fee); but see Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U. S. 408, 443-444, 458-459 (1989) (opinions of Stevens, J., and Blackmun, J.) (tribe can impose zoning regulation on that 3.1% of land within reservation area closed to public entry that was not owned by the tribe). But the existence of tribal ownership is not alone enough to support regulatory jurisdiction over nonmembers.
We proceed to consider, successively, the following questions: whether regulatory jurisdiction over state officers in the present context is "necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations," and, if not, whether such regulatory jurisdiction has been congressionally conferred.
B
In Strate, we explained that what is necessary to protect tribal self-government and control internal relations can be understood by looking at the examples of tribal power to
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