Page:Washington Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den, Inc..pdf/32

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WASHINGTON STATE DEPT. OF LICENSING v. COUGAR DEN, INC.

Gorsuch, J., concurring in judgement

with” language also indicates that tribal members knew they would have to “share the use of the road with whites” and accept regulations designed to allow the two groups’ safe coexistence. Yakama Indian Nation, 955 F. Supp., at 1265. Indeed, the Yakamas expected laws designed to “protec[t]” their ability to travel safely alongside non-Indians on the highways. See App. to Brief for Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation as Amicus Curiae 21a, 31a. Maybe, too, that expectation goes some way toward explaining why the State’s hypothetical parade of horribles has yet to take its first step in the real world. No one before us has identified a single challenge to a state highway speed limit, reckless driving law, or other critical highway safety regulation in the entire life of the Yakama treaty.

Retreating now, the State suggests that the real problem isn’t so much about the Yakamas themselves traveling freely as it is with their goods doing so. We are told we should worry, for example, about limiting Washington’s ability to regulate the transportation of diseased apples from Oregon. See also post, at 10 (Roberts, C. J., dissenting). But if bad apples prove to be a public menace, Oregon and its localities may regulate them when they are grown or picked at the orchard. Oregon, its localities, and maybe even the federal government may regulate the bad apples when they arrive at market for sale in Oregon. The Tribe and again, perhaps, the federal government may regulate the bad apples when they arrive on the reservation. And if the bad apples somehow pose a threat to safe travel on the highways, even Washington may regulate them as they make their way from Oregon to the reservation–just as the State may require tribal members to abide nondiscriminatory regulations governing the safe transportation of flammable cargo as they drive their gas trucks from Oregon to the reservation along public highways. The only thing that Washington may not do is