## Facts

- The Mescalero Apache Tribe, with extensive federal assistance and supervision, developed a comprehensive fish and wildlife management program on its reservation in south-central New Mexico.
- The Tribe and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service jointly developed game and fish resources, including artificial lakes, a hatchery, and the introduction of elk and other game.
- The Tribe annually adopted hunting and fishing ordinances based on federal recommendations; the ordinances were subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior.
- The federally approved tribal ordinances regulated in detail the conditions under which both tribal members and nonmembers could hunt and fish on the reservation, including permits and operating rules.
- New Mexico applied its own hunting and fishing regulations to nonmembers on the reservation and asserted concurrent regulatory jurisdiction, despite conflicts between state and tribal rules (including seasons, bag limits, and licensing requirements).
- The Tribe did not require state licenses for hunting and fishing conducted under tribal permits on tribal lands, and the regulatory program supported tribal economic development and self-government.
- The Tribe sued for declaratory and injunctive relief to bar state regulation of nonmember hunting and fishing on the reservation; the district court and the Tenth Circuit ruled for the Tribe.

## Issues

1. Whether New Mexico may apply its hunting and fishing regulations to nonmembers on the Mescalero Apache Reservation notwithstanding a comprehensive, federally supervised and federally approved tribal regulatory scheme.
2. Whether federal law and federal policy supporting tribal self-government and economic development preempt concurrent state regulation of on-reservation hunting and fishing by nonmembers.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Tenth Circuit.
- The Court held that applying New Mexico’s hunting and fishing laws to on-reservation hunting and fishing by nonmembers is preempted by federal law.
- The Court concluded that concurrent state regulation would interfere with and be incompatible with the federal–tribal regulatory program and with federal objectives supporting tribal self-government and economic development.
- The Court found New Mexico’s asserted conservation, enforcement-uniformity, and revenue interests insufficient to justify state authority in the face of the federal and tribal interests.

## Legal Principles

- In Indian law preemption analysis, state authority is displaced when it interferes with or is incompatible with federal and tribal interests reflected in federal law, unless state interests are sufficient to justify the asserted authority.
- Tribes retain inherent authority to regulate conduct of nonmembers on reservation trust lands, including the power to exclude and to impose conditions on entry and continued presence.
- When a federally supervised and federally approved tribal regulatory scheme comprehensively governs on-reservation activity, state superimposition of conflicting or additional requirements may be preempted even as applied only to nonmembers.
- State fiscal interests in license revenues or related federal matching funds are not, without more, adequate to justify concurrent regulation that disrupts a comprehensive tribal program.

## Conclusion

Because the Tribe’s federally supervised and federally approved wildlife management ordinances comprehensively governed hunting and fishing by members and nonmembers on reservation lands, and because concurrent state regulation would conflict with that program and federal policy favoring tribal self-government and economic development, federal law preempted New Mexico’s application of its hunting and fishing regulations to nonmembers on the reservation.


New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U.S. 324 (1983)