Taxation, importation, and Indian Tribes. No tax allowed.

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

The State of Washington taxes “motor vehicle fuel importer[s]” whobring large quantities of fuel into the State by “ground transportation.” Wash. Rev. Code §§82.36.010(4), (12), (16). Respondent Cougar Den, Inc., a wholesale fuel importer owned by a member of theYakama Nation, imports fuel from Oregon over Washington’s publichighways to the Yakama Reservation to sell to Yakama-owned retailgas stations located within the reservation. In 2013, the WashingtonState Department of Licensing assessed Cougar Den $3.6 million intaxes, penalties, and licensing fees for importing motor vehicle fuelinto the State. Cougar Den appealed, arguing that the Washingtontax, as applied to its activities, is pre-empted by an 1855 treaty between the United States and the Yakama Nation that, among otherthings, reserves the Yakamas’ “right, in common with citizens of theUnited States, to travel upon all public highways,” 12 Stat. 953. AWashington Superior Court held that the tax was pre-empted, andthe Washington Supreme Court affirmed. 

Held: The judgment is affirmed. 

No surprise, really, except that it was 5 to 4.

It does create cause for concern, however, regarding the impending decision in a case involving Tribal hunting rights and off reservation, inter state, hunting by tribal members.

Wyoming: No Federal Control. Yes Federal Control

Anyone who has lived in Wyoming for awhile knows that a really popular theme in Wyoming politics and culture is that the Federal government shouldn't be telling the state what to do. . . on anything.

So, why then is Senator John Barrasso sponsoring a bill that would modify the Clean Water Act to prohibit states from blocking projects that impact their water ways?

Section 401 of the Clean Water Act allows states to basically block things that they feel impact them locally.  And Washington state had done just that, blocking shipments of coal across Oregon on that basis.

Chances are that Washington's actions have less to do with their waters than they do a building national opposition to coal. But that's sort of besides the point.

Senator Barrasso would like the states to have more say over Endangered Species matters, and most Wyomingites including our Governor would as well.

And anger over national actions on all sorts of things exist at all sorts of levels, all the time. Sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes for bad.

But you can't have it both ways.

If Wyoming deserves more say over ESA matters, or wolves in the state, or coal leasing. . .well. . .I guess that Washington state can have the say it wants over the shipment of coal over its territory. That makes logical sense.

But it doesn't make political pocketbook sense to locals.  And like a lot of things, at the end of the day, people are pretty comfortable with Federal action it it benefits their wallets.

But if you do that too much. . . people won't listen to your arguments.

Camp Lewis, Washington. Copyright Deposit November 5, 1917.

Remount Station, "Camp Lewis", Tacoma, Washington. October 31, 1917

Camp Lewis, Tacoma, Washington, Sept. 28, 1917

The Seattle Waterfront

Copyrighted on March 23, 1917.

Spillway forms, Keechelus Dam, Yakim River, Washington, October 24, 1916.

LOC Caption:  Photographic copy of photograph, photographer unknown, 24 October 1916 (original print located at U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Upper Columbia Area Office, Yakima, Washington). "Spillway forms." - Keechelus Dam, Spillway, Yakim River, 10 miles northwest of Easton, Easton, Kittitas County, WA

Excavation Work: September 2, 1916 Washington

LOC Title:  Photographic copy of photograph, photographer unknown, 2 September 1916 (original print located at U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Upper Columbia Area Office, Yakima, Washington). "Excavation of channel below conduit. Stilling basin site." - Keechelus Dam, Outlet Channel, Yakim River, 10 miles northwest of Easton, Easton, Kittitas County, WA

Mid Week at Work: Piling logs with a Washington Donkey

LOC Title:  Photographic copy of photograph, photographer unknown, 5 September 1916 (original print located at U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Upper Columbia Area Office, Yakima, Washington). "Piling logs with Washington donkey." - Keechelus Dam, Yakima River, 10 miles northwest of Easton, Easton, Kittitas County, WA

Pacific Aero Products incorporated: July 15, 1916

Pacific Aero Products incorporated by William Boeing in Seattle Washington.  The company would later be changed to be named after its founder.

Mid Week At Work: Guards, Washington D. C.

The Big Picture: The Olympics

Remount Station, 1917

Relates back, in some ways, to my attempted poll on Working With Animals.

Monday, April 26, 1909. The barbarity of the day.

Natural Bridge, Virginia, April 26, 1909.

California joined Indiana and Washington in providing a law to force the sterilization of mentally retarded persons.

A growing movement at the time, this is universally regarded as a horror now, but largely because the Nazis would adopt a policy to murder people in the same category, revealing such actions for what they are.

Stockton, California, April 26, 1909.

Transgender surgeries, particularly of minors, has been rightly compared to it, and will be regarded in the same fashion in the future.

Nogales, Arizona, April 26, 1909.

The Hungarian cabinet resigned in protest of the Austro-Hungarian Viennese government's lack of support for universal suffrage for Hungarians, use of Magyar in Army regiments, and Hungarian bank independence.

Harrison County, Texas, Deputy Sheriff Lewis Markham Huffman, age 27, was shot and killed investigating a railroad camp disturbance. His partner was shot but survived.The offender was lynched. 

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 24, 1909. Driving.

1900s, 1909, Equine Transportation

Wednesday, March 3, 1909. Roosevelt's last day in office.

It was Theodore Roosevelt's last full day in office.

Roosevelt was stepping down after having only ran once. By custom, although not by law, he was allowed to serve two full terms.  He's very soon come to regret not doing so.

On this day, he accomplished a number of things, not seemingly taking a last day of rest.  One of the things he did was to sign a bill creating the Mount Olympus National Monument in the State of Washington.

Another thing was to issue Executive Order 969 which stated:

In accordance with the power vested in me by section 1619, Revised Statutes of the United States, the following duties are assigned to the United States Marine Corps:

(1) To garrison the different navy-yards and naval stations, both within and beyond the continental limits of the United States.

(2) To furnish the first line of the mobile defense of naval bases and naval stations beyond the continental limits of the United States.

(3) To man such naval defenses, and to aid in manning, if necessary, such other defenses, as may be erected for the defense of naval bases and naval stations beyond the continental limits of the United States.

(4) To garrison the Isthmian Canal Zone, Panama.

(5) To furnish such garrisons and expeditionary forces for duties beyond the seas as may be necessary in time of peace.

Theodore Roosevelt.

The White House

This doesn't seem that radical, but it was actually a limiting order and was intended to be.  It made the Marines, which were just beginning to expand their role, more like conventional Marines in other nations.  The order would not remain in place.

On Naval matters:

Today In Wyoming's History: March 3: 1909  Order placed for the USS Wyoming, BB-32, to be built.

The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 was ratified by the Senate.

The Food and Drug Administration approved using sodium benzoate as a food preservative, even though a ban had been recommended the prior July.

Gatun Dam Lock site.

Culebra Cut, Rio Grande in foreground.