Gobin

*911 OPINION

Snohomish County (“County”) asserted land use jurisdiction over a proposed building project located on reservation land owned in fee simple by Kim Gobin and Guy Madison (collectively “Gobin”), registered members of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington (“the Tribes”). Gobin sought a declaratory judgment that the County lacked such jurisdiction over her lands. The district court agreed. We have jurisdiction over the County’s timely appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We conclude that by making Gobin’s fee lands freely alienable and encumberable, Congress did not expressly authorize County jurisdiction over those lands. Neither did exceptional circumstances warrant County jurisdiction in this case. Thus, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

The County rests between Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountain Range in northwest Washington. Over the past two decades the County’s population has increased faster than any county in Washington.

The Tribes constitute a federally recognized Indian Tribe. The Tribes’s reservation is located entirely within the County and comprises approximately 1.6% of the County’s land area. About two thousand tribal members and eight thousand nonmembers inhabit…