Cite as: 537 U. S. 488 (2003)
Souter, J., dissenting
IMLA requires the Secretary's approval for the effectiveness of any lease negotiated by the Tribe with a third party. § 396a; see also 25 CFR § 211.2 (1985). The Court accepts the Government's position, see Brief for United States 38, that the IMLA approval responsibility places no substantive obligation on the Secretary, save for a minimal duty to withhold assent from leases calling for less than the minimum royalty rate set by IMLA regulations, whatever that may be. Ante, at 511. Since that rate is merely a general standard, which may be a bargain rate when applied to extractable material of high quality, the obligation to demand it may not amount to much. The legislative history and purposes of IMLA, however, illuminated by the Secretary's historical role in reviewing conveyances of Indian lands, point to a fiduciary responsibility to make a more ambitious assessment of the best interest of the Tribe before signing off.
The protective purpose of the Secretary's approval power has appeared in our discussions of other statutes governing Indian lands over the years. In Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286 (1911), for example, we upheld the constitutionality of the Act of Apr. 26, 1906, ch. 1876, § 22, 34 Stat. 145, which made alienation of certain allotted lands by citizen Indians "subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior." Although allotment and conferral of citizenship had given tribal members greater responsibility for their own interest, see, e. g., Choteau v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 691, 694 (1931), we nevertheless understood that the requirement of prior approval was supposed to satisfy the National Government's trust responsibility to the Indians, Tiger, supra, at 310-311; accord, Sunderland v. United States, 266 U. S. 226, 233 (1924) (restraints on alienation of Indian property are enacted "in fulfillment of [Congress's] duty to protect the Indians"). Shortly after Tiger, in Anicker v. Gunsburg, 246 U. S. 110 (1918), we held that the Secretary's authority to approve leases of allotted lands under the Act of May 27,
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