UNITED STATES v. NAVAJO NATION

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Syllabus
UNITED STATES v. NAVAJO NATION
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the federal circuit
No. 07–1410. Argued February 23, 2009—Decided April 6, 2009
The Navajo Nation has long sought damages under the Indian Tucker Act
(ITA) for an asserted breach of fiduciary duty by the Secretary of the
Interior in connection with his failure promptly to approve a royalty
rate increase under a coal lease (Lease 8580) the Tribe executed in 1964.
Six years ago, this Court held that “the Tribe’s claim for compen
sation . . . fails.” United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S. 488, 493
(Navajo I). The Court explained that in order to invoke the ITA and
thereby bypass federal sovereign immunity, a tribe “must identify a
substantive source of law that establishes specific fiduciary or other du
ties, and allege that the Government has failed faithfully to perform
those duties.” Id., at 506. Holding that such duties were not imposed
by the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938 (IMLA), by the Indian Min
eral Development Act of 1982 (IMDA), or by 25 U. S. C. § 399, the Court
reversed a judgment for the Tribe and remanded. The Court of Fed
eral Claims then dismissed the Tribe’s claim, but the Federal Circuit
reversed, finding violations of duties imposed by the Navajo-Hopi Reha
bilitation Act of 1950, 25 U. S. C. §§ 635(a), 638, and the Surface Mining
Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U. S. C. § 1300(e), as well as
common-law duties arising from the Government’s “comprehensive con
trol” over tribal coal.
Held: The Tribe’s claim for compensation fails. None of the sources of
law cited by the Federal Circuit and relied upon by the Tribe provides
any more sound a basis for its lawsuit than those analyzed in Navajo I.
Pp. 295–302.
(a) Navajo I did not definitively terminate the Tribe’s claim. Be
cause the Court in that case did not analyze statutes other than the
IMLA, the IMDA, and § 399, it is conceivable, albeit unlikely, that
another relevant statute might have provided a basis for the suit.
However, Navajo I ’s reasoning—particularly its instruction to “train
on specific rights-creating or duty-imposing statutory or regulatory
prescriptions,” 537 U. S., at 506—left no room for that result based on
the sources of law relied on below. Pp. 295–296.
(b) Lease 8580 was not issued under § 635(a), so the Tribe cannot in
voke that law as a source of money-mandating duties. Section 635(a)

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Syllabus
authorizes leases only for terms of up to 25 years, renewable for up to
another 25 years. In contrast, the IMLA allows “terms not to exceed
ten years and as long thereafter as minerals are produced in paying
quantities.” § 396a. Mirroring the latter language, Lease 8580’s in
definite term strongly suggests that it was negotiated and approved
under the IMLA. This conclusion is not refuted by § 635(a)’s saving
clause or by testimony that coal leasing was a centerpiece of the Reha
bilitation Act’s program. Pp. 296–299.
(c) Also unavailing is the argument that the Secretary violated § 638’s
requirement that he follow the Tribe’s recommendations in adminis
tering the “program authorized by this subchapter.” The word “pro
gram” refers back to § 631, which directs the Secretary to undertake
“a program of basic improvements for the conservation and development
of the [Tribe’s] resources” and lists various projects to be included in
the program. The statute certainly does not require the Secretary to
follow recommendations of the Tribe as to royalty rates under coal
leases executed pursuant to another Act. Pp. 299–300.
(d) Title 30 U. S. C. § 1300(e) is irrelevant. That provision applies
only “[w]ith respect to leases issued after” the statute was enacted in
1977. Lease 8580 was issued in 1964; § 1300(e) is therefore inapplica
ble. P. 300.
(e) The Government’s “comprehensive control” over Indian coal,
alone, does not create enforceable fiduciary duties. The ITA limits cog
nizable claims to those arising under, inter alia, “the . . . laws . . . of the
United States,” 28 U. S. C. § 1505, and Navajo I reiterated that the
analysis must begin with “specific rights-creating or duty-imposing stat
utory or regulatory prescriptions,” 537 U. S., at 506. If a statute or
regulation imposes a trust relationship, then common-law principles are
relevant in determining whether damages are available for breach of
the duty, but the Tribe cannot identify a specific, applicable, trust
creating statute or regulation that the Government violated, so trust
principles do not come into play here. Pp. 301–302.
501 F. 3d 1327, reversed and remanded.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Souter, J.,
filed a concurring opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined, post, p. 302.
Then-Acting Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause
for the United States. With him on the briefs were former
Solicitor General Garre, Assistant Attorney General Ten
pas, Anthony A. Yang, and Elizabeth A. Peterson.

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Opinion of the Court
Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief were Virginia A. Seitz, Robert A. Parker,
Paul E. Frye, Lisa M. Enfield, and Louis Denetsosie.*
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
For over 15 years, the Indian Tribe known as the Navajo
Nation has been pursuing a claim for money damages against
the Federal Government based on an asserted breach of
trust by the Secretary of the Interior in connection with his
approval of amendments to a coal lease executed by the
Tribe. The original lease took effect in 1964. The amend
ments were approved in 1987. The litigation was initiated
in 1993. Six years ago, we held that “the Tribe’s claim for
compensation . . . fails,” United States v. Navajo Nation, 537
U. S. 488, 493 (2003) (Navajo I), but after further proceed
ings on remand the United States Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit resuscitated it. 501 F. 3d 1327 (2007).
Today we hold, once again, that the Tribe’s claim for compen
sation fails. This matter should now be regarded as closed.
I. Legal Background
The Federal Government cannot be sued without its con
sent. FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471, 475 (1994). Limited
consent has been granted through a variety of statutes, in
cluding one colloquially referred to as the Indian Tucker Act:
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for Peabody Western
Coal Co. et al. by Charles G. Cole, Antonia B. Ianniello, Shannen W.
Coffin, Paul R. Hurst, G. Michael Halfenger, and Lawrence G. McBride.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of New
Mexico et al. by Gary King, Attorney General of New Mexico, and David
Thomson, Deputy Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for
their respective States as follows: Terry Goddard of Arizona and Mark
Shurtleff of Utah; for Law Professors by Richard B. Collins and Carole
E. Goldberg, both pro se; for the National Congress of American Indians
et al. by Reid Peyton Chambers, Douglas B. L. Endreson, William R.
Perry, and John T. Harrison; and for former Secretary of the Interior
Cecil D. Andrus et al. by Kathleen M. Sullivan, Daniel H. Bromberg, and
Margret M. Caruso.

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“The United States Court of Federal Claims shall
have jurisdiction of any claim against the United States
accruing after August 13, 1946, in favor of any tribe . . .
whenever such claim is one arising under the Constitu
tion, laws or treaties of the United States, or Executive
orders of the President, or is one which otherwise would
be cognizable in the Court of Federal Claims if the
claimant were not an Indian tribe, band or group.” 28
U. S. C. § 1505.
The last clause refers to the (ordinary) Tucker Act, which
waives immunity with respect to any claim “founded either
upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regu
lation of an executive department, or upon any express or
implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated
or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort.”
§ 1491(a)(1).
Neither the Tucker Act nor the Indian Tucker Act creates
substantive rights; they are simply jurisdictional provisions
that operate to waive sovereign immunity for claims prem
ised on other sources of law (e. g., statutes or contracts).
United States v. Testan, 424 U. S. 392, 400 (1976); United
States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 538 (1980) (Mitchell I).
The other source of law need not explicitly provide that the
right or duty it creates is enforceable through a suit for dam
ages, but it triggers liability only if it “ ‘can fairly be inter
preted as mandating compensation by the Federal Govern
ment.’ ” Testan, supra, at 400 (quoting Eastport S. S. Corp.
v. United States, 178 Ct. Cl. 599, 607, 372 F. 2d 1002, 1009
(1967)); see also United States v. Mitchell, 463 U. S. 206, 218
(1983) (Mitchell II); Navajo I, 537 U. S., at 503.
As we explained in Navajo I, there are thus two hurdles
that must be cleared before a tribe can invoke jurisdiction
under the Indian Tucker Act. First, the tribe “must identify
a substantive source of law that establishes specific fiduciary
or other duties, and allege that the Government has failed
faithfully to perform those duties.” Id., at 506. “If that

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threshold is passed, the court must then determine whether
the relevant source of substantive law ‘can fairly be inter
preted as mandating compensation for damages sustained
as a result of a breach of the duties [the governing law]
impose[s].’ ” Ibid. (alteration in original). At the second
stage, principles of trust law might be relevant “in drawing
the inference that Congress intended damages to remedy a
breach.” United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe,
537 U. S. 465, 477 (2003).
II. History of the Present Case
A. The Facts
A comprehensive recitation of the facts can be found in
Navajo I, supra, at 495–502. By way of executive summary:
The Tribe occupies a large Indian reservation in the Ameri
can Southwest, on which there are significant coal deposits.
In 1964 the Secretary of the Interior approved a lease (Lease
8580), executed by the Tribe and the predecessor of Peabody
Coal Company, allowing the company to engage in coal min
ing on a tract of the reservation in exchange for royalty pay
ments to the Tribe. The term of the lease was set at “ten
(10) years from the date hereof, and for so long thereafter as
the substances produced are being mined by the Lessee in
accordance with its terms, in paying quantities,” App. 189; it
is still in effect today. The royalty rates were originally set
at a maximum of 37.5 cents per ton of coal, but the lease also
said that the rates were “subject to reasonable adjustment
by the Secretary of the Interior” after 20 years and again
“at the end of each successive ten-year period thereafter.”
Id., at 194.
The dispute in this case concerns the Tribe’s attempt to
secure such an adjustment to the royalty rate after the initial
20-year period elapsed in 1984. At that point, the Tribe re
quested that the Secretary exercise his power to increase
the royalty rate, and the Director of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs for the Navajo Area issued an opinion letter imposing

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a new rate of 20 percent of gross proceeds. Id., at 8–9. But
Peabody filed an administrative appeal, and while it was
pending the Tribe and the company reached a negotiated
agreement to set a rate of 12.5 percent of gross proceeds
instead. As a result, the Area Director’s decision was va
cated, the administrative appeal was dismissed, and the Sec
retary approved the amendments to the lease.
B. This Litigation Through Navajo I
The Tribe launched the present lawsuit in 1993, claiming
that the Secretary’s actions in connection with the approval
of the lease amendments constituted a breach of trust. In
particular, the Tribe alleged that the Secretary, following
upon improper ex parte contacts with Peabody, had delayed
action on Peabody’s administrative appeal in order to pres
sure the economically desperate Tribe to return to the bar
gaining table. This, the complaint charged, was in violation
of the United States’ fiduciary duty to act in the Indians’
best interests. The Tribe sought $600 million in dam
ages, invoking the Indian Tucker Act to bypass sovereign
immunity.
The Court of Federal Claims granted summary judgment
to the United States, concluding that “the Navajo Nation
has failed to present statutory authority which can be fairly
interpreted as mandating compensation for the government’s
fiduciary wrongs,” Navajo Nation v. United States, 46 Fed.
Cl. 217, 236 (2000), and therefore could not sue under the
Indian Tucker Act. The Federal Circuit reversed that rul
ing and held that the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938
(IMLA), Ch. 198, 52 Stat. 347, 25 U. S. C. § 396a et seq.,
among other statutes, gave the Government broad control
over mineral leasing on Indian lands, thus creating a fidu
ciary duty enforceable through suits for monetary damages.
Navajo Nation v. United States, 263 F. 3d 1325, 1330–1332
(2001). Finding that the Government had in fact violated
its obligations, the Court of Appeals reinstated the suit.

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We granted certiorari, United States v. Navajo Nation,
535 U. S. 1111 (2002), and (as described by the author of the
ensuing opinion, concurring in a companion case) considered
“the threshold question” presented by the Tribe’s attempt to
invoke the Indian Tucker Act: “whether the IMLA and its
regulations impose any concrete substantive obligations, fi
duciary or otherwise, on the Government,” White Mountain,
supra, at 480 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). The answer was
an unequivocal no.
The relevant provision of the IMLA provided as follows:
“[U]nallotted lands within any Indian reservation or
lands owned by any tribe . . . may, with the approval of
the Secretary of the Interior, be leased for mining pur
poses, by authority of the tribal council or other author
ized spokesmen for such Indians, for terms not to ex
ceed ten years and as long thereafter as minerals are
produced in paying quantities.” 25 U. S. C. § 396a.
Another provision of the IMLA authorized the Secretary to
promulgate regulations governing operations under such
leases, § 396d, but during the relevant period the regulations
applicable to coal leases, beyond setting a minimum royalty
rate of 10 cents per ton, 25 CFR § 211.15(c) (1985), did not
limit the Secretary’s approval authority.
We construed the IMLA in light of its purpose: to “en
hance tribal self-determination by giving Tribes, not the
Government, the lead role in negotiating mining leases with
third parties.” Navajo I, 537 U. S., at 508. Consistent with
that goal, the IMLA gave the Secretary not a “comprehen
sive managerial role,” id., at 507, but only the power to ap
prove coal leases already negotiated by Tribes. That au
thority did not create, expressly or otherwise, a trust duty
with respect to coal leasing and so there existed no enforce
able fiduciary obligations that the Tribe could sue the Gov
ernment for having neglected. Id., at 507–508.

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We distinguished Mitchell II, which involved a series of
statutes and regulations that gave the Federal Government
“full responsibility to manage Indian resources and land for
the benefit of the Indians.” 463 U. S., at 224. Title 25
U. S. C. § 406(a) permitted Indians to sell timber with the
consent of the Secretary of the Interior, but directed the
Secretary to base his decisions on “a consideration of the
needs and best interests of the Indian owner and his heirs”
and enumerated specific factors to guide that decision
making. We understood that statute—in combination with
several other provisions and the applicable regulations—to
create a fiduciary duty with respect to Indian timber.
Mitchell II, supra, at 219–224. But neither the IMLA nor
its regulations established any analogous duties or obliga
tions in the coal context. Navajo I, supra, at 507–508.
Nor did the other statutes cited by the Tribe—25 U. S. C.
§ 399 and the Indian Mineral Development Act of 1982
(IMDA), 96 Stat. 1938, 25 U. S. C. § 2101 et seq.—help its case.
Section 399 “is not part of the IMLA and [did] not govern
Lease 8580,” Navajo I, 537 U. S., at 509; rather, it granted
to the Secretary the power to lease Indian land on his own
say-so. We therefore found it irrelevant to the question
whether “the Secretary’s more limited approval role under
the IMLA” created any enforceable duties. Ibid. And
while the IMDA did set standards to govern the Secretary’s
approval of other mining-related agreements, Lease 8580
“falls outside the IMDA’s domain,” ibid.; that law was ac
cordingly beside the point.
Having resolved that “we ha[d] no warrant from any rele
vant statute or regulation to conclude that [the Secretary’s]
conduct implicated a duty enforceable in an action for dam
ages under the Indian Tucker Act,” this Court reversed the
Federal Circuit’s judgment in favor of the Tribe and “re
manded for further proceedings consistent with this opin
ion.” Id., at 514.

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C. Proceedings on Remand
On remand, the Tribe argued that even if its suit could not
be maintained on the basis of the IMLA, the IMDA, or § 399,
a “network” of other statutes, treaties, and regulations could
provide the basis for its claims. The Government objected
that our opinion foreclosed that possibility, but the Federal
Circuit disagreed and remanded for consideration of the ar
gument in the first instance. 347 F. 3d 1327 (2003). The
Court of Federal Claims, however, persisted in its original
decision to dismiss the Tribe’s claim, explaining that nothing
in the suggested “network” succeeded in tying “specific laws
or regulatory provisions to the issue at hand,” namely, the
Secretary’s approval of royalty rates in coal leases negoti
ated by tribes. 68 Fed. Cl. 805, 811 (2005).
Once again the Federal Circuit reversed, this time relying
primarily on three statutory provisions—two sections of the
Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950, §§5, 8, 64 Stat. 46, 25
U. S. C. §§ 635(a), 638; and one section of the Surface Mining
Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U. S. C. § 1300(e)—
to allow the Tribe’s claim to proceed. The court held that
the Government had violated the specific duties created by
those statutes, as well as “common law trust duties of care,
candor, and loyalty” that arise from the comprehensive con
trol over tribal coal that is exercised by the Government.
501 F. 3d 1327, 1346 (2007).
Once again we granted the Government’s petition for a
writ of certiorari. 554 U. S. 944 (2008).
III. Analysis
A. Threshold Matter
The Government points to our categorical concluding lan
guage in Navajo I: “[W]e have no warrant from any relevant
statute or regulation to conclude that [the Secretary’s] con
duct implicated a duty enforceable in an action for damages
under the Indian Tucker Act,” 537 U. S., at 514. This
proves, the Government claims, that this Court definitively

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terminated the Tribe’s claim last time around, so that the
lower court’s later resurrection of the suit was flatly incon
sistent with our mandate. But, to be fair, our opinion (like
the Court of Appeals decision we were reviewing, Navajo
Nation, 263 F. 3d, at 1327, 1330–1331) did not analyze any
statutes beyond the IMLA, the IMDA, and § 399. It is thus
conceivable, albeit unlikely, that some other relevant statute,
though invoked by the Tribe at the outset of the litigation,
might have gone unmentioned by the Federal Circuit and
unanalyzed by this Court.
So we cannot say that our mandate completely foreclosed
the possibility that such a statute might allow for the Tribe
to succeed on remand. What we can say, however, is that
our reasoning in Navajo I—in particular, our emphasis on
the need for courts to “train on specific rights-creating or
duty-imposing statutory or regulatory prescriptions,” 537
U. S., at 506—left no room for that result based on the
sources of law that the Court of Appeals relied upon.
B. 25 U. S. C. § 635(a)
The first of the two discussed provisions of the Navajo-
Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950—like the IMLA—permits
Indians to lease reservation lands if the Secretary approves
of the deal:
“Any restricted Indian lands owned by the Navajo
Tribe, members thereof, or associations of such members
. . . may be leased by the Indian owners, with the ap
proval of the Secretary of the Interior, for public, reli
gious, educational, recreational, or business purposes,
including the development or utilization of natural re
sources in connection with operations under such leases.
All leases so granted shall be for a term of not to exceed
twenty-five years, but may include provisions authoriz
ing their renewal for an additional term of not to exceed
twenty-five years, and shall be made under such regula
tions as may be prescribed by the Secretary. . . . Nothing

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contained in this section shall be construed to repeal
or affect any authority to lease restricted Indian lands
conferred by or pursuant to any other provision of law.”
25 U. S. C. § 635(a).
The Tribe contends that this section renders the Govern
ment liable for any breach of trust in connection with the
approval of leases executed pursuant to the authority it
grants. Whether or not that is so, the provision only even
arguably matters if Lease 8580 was issued under its
authority.
In Navajo I we presumed, as did the parties, that the lease
had been issued pursuant to the IMLA. 537 U. S., at 495.
But now the Tribe has changed its tune, and contends that
Lease 8580 was approved under § 635(a), not under the
IMLA at all. Brief for Respondent 39. The Government
says otherwise. Section 635(a) permits leasing only for
“public, religious, educational, recreational, or business pur
poses,” and the Government contends that mining is not em
braced by those terms. While leases under § 635(a) may
provide for “the development or utilization of natural re
sources,” they may do so only “in connection with operations
under such leases,” i. e., in connection with operations for
the enumerated purposes. By contrast, mining leases were
permitted and governed by the IMLA even before the
Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act was enacted in 1950.
We need not decide whether the Government is correct on
that point, or whether mining could ever qualify as a “busi
ness purpos[e]” under the statute, because the Tribe’s argu
ment suffers from a more fundamental problem. Section
635(a) authorizes leases only for terms of up to 25 years,
renewable for up to another 25 years. In contrast, the
IMLA allows “for terms not to exceed ten years and as long
thereafter as minerals are produced in paying quantities.”
25 U. S. C. § 396a. Lease 8580, mirroring the latter lan
guage, sets a term of “ten (10) years from the date hereof,
and for so long thereafter as the substances produced are

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being mined by the Lessee in accordance with its terms, in
paying quantities.” App. 189. That indefinite lease term
strongly suggests that it was negotiated by the Tribe and
approved by the Secretary under the powers authorized by
the IMLA, not the Rehabilitation Act.
The Tribe’s only responses to this apparently fatal defect
in its argument are (1) that § 635(a) expressly leaves unaf
fected “any authority to lease restricted Indian lands con
ferred by or pursuant to any other provision of law,” includ
ing the authority to lease for indefinite terms; and (2) that
Stewart Udall, who served as Secretary of the Interior dur
ing the 1960’s, recently testified that “coal leasing and related
development was the centerpiece of the resources develop
ment program” under the Rehabilitation Act, id., ¶3, at 569.
As to the former: That is precisely the point. Section
635(a) creates a supplemental authority for leasing Indian
land; it does not displace authority granted elsewhere. But
in light of the different conditions attached to the different
grants, it is apparent that a particular lease must be exe
cuted and approved pursuant to a particular authorization.
The saving clause in § 635(a) does not allow the Tribe to
mix-and-match, to combine the (allegedly) duty-creating
mechanism of the Rehabilitation Act with the indefinite lease
term of the IMLA. It must be one or the other, and the
record persuasively demonstrates that Lease 8580 is an
IMLA lease.
As to Secretary Udall’s testimony: That is not inconsistent
with our conclusion. The Interior Department may have
viewed coal leasing as an important part of the program to
rehabilitate the Navajo Tribe but that does not prove that
Lease 8580 was issued pursuant to the supplemental leasing
authority granted by the Rehabilitation Act, rather than the
pre-existing leasing authority of the IMLA preserved by the
Rehabilitation Act. The latter, perhaps because of its
longer lease terms, was evidently preferable to the Tribe or
the coal company or both.

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Because the lease in this case “falls outside” § 635(a)’s “do
main,” Navajo I, supra, at 509, the Tribe cannot invoke it as
a source of money-mandating rights or duties.
C. 25 U. S. C. § 638
Next, the Tribe points to a second provision in the
Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act:
“The Tribal Councils of the Navajo and Hopi Tribes
and the Indian communities affected shall be kept in
formed and afforded opportunity to consider from their
inception plans pertaining to the program authorized by
this subchapter. In the administration of the program,
the Secretary of the Interior shall consider the recom
mendations of the tribal councils and shall follow such
recommendations whenever he deems them feasible and
consistent with the objectives of this subchapter.” 25
U. S. C. § 638.
In the Tribe’s view, the Secretary violated this provision by
failing promptly to abide by its wishes to affirm the Area
Director’s order increasing the royalty rate under Lease
8580 to a full 20 percent of gross proceeds.
We cannot agree. The “program” twice mentioned in
§ 638 refers back to the Act’s opening provision, which di
rects the Secretary to undertake “a program of basic im
provements for the conservation and development of the re
sources of the Navajo and Hopi Indians, the more productive
employment of their manpower, and the supplying of means
to be used in their rehabilitation.” § 631. The statute then
enumerates various projects to be included in that program,
and authorizes appropriation of funds (in specific amounts)
for each. E. g., “Soil and water conservation and range im
provement work, $10,000,000.” § 631(1).
The only listed project even remotely related to this case
is “[s]urveys and studies of timber, coal, mineral, and other
physical and human resources.” § 631(3). Of course a lease

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is neither a survey nor a study. To read § 638 as imposing
a money-mandating duty on the Secretary to follow recom
mendations of the Tribe as to royalty rates under coal leases
executed pursuant to another Act, and to allow for the en
forcement of that duty through the Indian Tucker Act, would
simply be too far a stretch.
D. 30 U. S. C. § 1201 et seq.
The final statute invoked by the Tribe is the most easily
dispensed with. The Surface Mining Control and Reclama
tion Act of 1977 (SMCRA), 91 Stat. 445, 30 U. S. C. § 1201
et seq., is a comprehensive statute that regulates all surface
coal mining operations. See generally § 1202; Hodel v. Vir
ginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S.
264, 268–272 (1981). One section of the Act, § 1300, deals
with coal mining specifically on Indian lands, and the Tribe
cites subsection (e): “With respect to leases issued after [the
date of enactment of this Act], the Secretary shall include
and enforce terms and conditions in addition to those re
quired by subsections (c) and (d) of this section as may be
requested by the Indian tribe in such leases.”
According to the Tribe, this provision requires the Secre
tary to enforce whatever terms the Indians request with re
spect to coal leases. In light of the fact that the referenced
subsections (c) and (d) refer exclusively to environmental
protection standards, that interpretation is highly suspect.
In any event, because Lease 8580 was issued in 1964—some
13 years before the date of enactment of the SMCRA—the
provision is categorically inapplicable. The Federal Circuit
concluded otherwise on the theory that the amendments to
the lease were approved after 1977. But § 1300(e) is limited
to leases “issued” after that date; and even the Tribe does
not contend that a lease is “issued” whenever it is amended.
The SMCRA is irrelevant here.

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Cite as: 556 U. S. 287 (2009) 301
Opinion of the Court
E. Government’s “Comprehensive Control” Over Coal
The Federal Circuit’s opinion also suggested that the Gov
ernment’s “comprehensive control” over coal on Indian land
gives rise to fiduciary duties based on common-law trust
principles. It noted that the Government had conducted
surveys and studies of the Tribe’s coal resources, 501 F. 3d,
at 1341; that the Interior Department imposed various re
quirements on coal mining operations on Indian land—regu
lating, for example, “signs and markers, postmining use of
land, backfilling and grading, waste disposal, topsoil han
dling, protection of hydrologic systems, revegetation, and
steep-slope mining,” id., at 1342; and that the Government
in practice exercised control over the calculation of coal val
ues and quantities for royalty purposes, even though such
control was codified by regulation only after the events at
issue here, id., at 1342–1343.
The Federal Government’s liability cannot be premised on
control alone. The text of the Indian Tucker Act makes
clear that only claims arising under “the Constitution, laws
or treaties of the United States, or Executive orders of the
President” are cognizable (unless the claim could be brought
by a non-Indian plaintiff under the ordinary Tucker Act). 28
U. S. C. § 1505. In Navajo I we reiterated that the analysis
must begin with “specific rights-creating or duty-imposing
statutory or regulatory prescriptions.” 537 U. S., at 506.
If a plaintiff identifies such a prescription, and if that pre
scription bears the hallmarks of a “conventional fiduciary re
lationship,” White Mountain, 537 U. S., at 473, then trust
principles (including any such principles premised on “con
trol”) could play a role in “inferring that the trust obligation
[is] enforceable by damages,” id., at 477. But that must be
the second step of the analysis, not (as the Federal Circuit
made it) the starting point.
Navajo I determined that the IMLA, which governs the
lease at issue here, does not create even a “ ‘limited trust

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302 UNITED STATES v. NAVAJO NATION
Souter, J., concurring
relationship’ ” with respect to coal leasing. 537 U. S., at 508
(quoting Mitchell I, 445 U. S., at 542). Since the statutes
discussed in the preceding subparts, supra, at 296–300, do
not apply to the lease at all, they likewise create no such
relationship. Because the Tribe cannot identify a specific,
applicable, trust-creating statute or regulation that the Gov
ernment violated, we do not reach the question whether the
trust duty was money mandating. Thus, neither the Gov
ernment’s “control” over coal nor common-law trust princi
ples matter.
* * *
None of the sources of law cited by the Federal Circuit
and relied upon by the Tribe provides any more sound a basis
for its breach-of-trust lawsuit against the Federal Govern
ment than those we analyzed in Navajo I. This case is at
an end. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed,
and the case is remanded with instructions to affirm the
Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of the Tribe’s complaint.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens joins,
concurring.
I am not through regretting that my position in United
States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S. 488, 514–521 (2003) (dis
senting opinion), did not carry the day. But it did not, and
I agree that the precedent of that case calls for the result
reached here.