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WAGNON v. PRAIRIE BAND POTAWATOMI NATION Ginsburg, J., dissenting
on the Nation’s sovereign status. The Nation thus receives neither a state exemption so that it can impose its own fuel tax, nor a share of the State’s fuel tax revenues. Accord ingly, the net result of invalidating Kansas’ tax as applied to fuel distributed to the Nation Station would be a somewhat more equitable distribution of road maintenance revenues in Kansas. Kansas argues that, were the Nation to prevail in this case, nothing would stop the Nation from reducing its tax in order to sell gas below the market price. Brief for Peti tioner 30. Colville should quell the State’s fears in this re gard. Were the Nation to pursue such a course, it would be marketing an exemption, much as the smokeshops did in Colville, and hence, interest balancing would likely yield a judgment for the State. See 447 U. S., at 155–157. In any event, as the Nation points out, the State could guard against the risk that “Tribes will impose a ‘nominal tax’ and sell goods at a deep discount on the reservation.” Brief for Re spondent 34–35. The State could provide a credit for any tribal tax imposed or enact a state tax that applies only to the extent that the Nation fails to impose an equivalent tribal tax. Id., at 35. Today’s decision is particularly troubling because of the cloud it casts over the most beneficial means to resolve con flicts of this order. In Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe of Okla., 498 U. S. 505 (1991), the Court counseled that States and tribes may enter into agree ments establishing “a mutually satisfactory regime for the collection of this sort of tax.” Id., at 514; see also Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U. S. 353, 393 (2001) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (describing various state-tribal agreements); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28–29, and n. 12; Brief for National Intertribal Tax Alliance et al. as Amici Curiae; Ansson, State Taxation of Non-Indians Who Do Business With Indian Tribes: Why Sev eral Recent Ninth Circuit Holdings Reemphasize the Need
