When Geoffrey Standing Bear addressed the Osage Nation at his inauguration as principal chief of the Osage Nation in July of 2022, the audience became noticeably fired up when he called for the tribe to govern its own land, its own territories, and its own people.
“Minerals Council,” he said to a roll of luluing and applause: “It is time for you to fully manage our mineral estate for our people.
“Congress: … We need you to enact laws of the Osage Nation to do this …
“Be quick about it. Life is short. Be quick about it.”
It is now more than two years later, and the Standing Bear administration, after at least six compact-negotiating sessions, has yielded no agreement as to the tribe taking over functions performed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They have now filed suit against the U.S. Department of Interior. Those functions include not just management of the Osage Minerals Estate, but also real estate, probate, and trust services.
It is unclear how the Minerals Council feels about the lawsuit: None of its members responded to an email on Aug. 12 asking them to comment on the case.
The Office of the Chiefs also declined to comment; Standing Bear was out of town at a conference and could not be reached. Assistant Chief R.J. Walker said Standing Bear’s input was needed to respond to questions the Osage News posed.
In a prepared release issued before his departure, Standing Bear was adamant about the Osage asserting sovereignty.
“The Department of Interior’s stalling tactics are well known among Indian Country,” he said. “The Osage Nation and our Attorney General Clint Patterson will not sit idle while they [DOI] continue micromanaging the Osage Nation Minerals Estate.
“Consistent with the United States and Osage Nation Constitutions, the Osage Nation has the right to self-governance and the Osage Minerals Council has the right to administer and develop the Osage Minerals Estate.
“The Osage Nation will continue our one-hundred-year-plus battle for these rights.
“It is time for the Department of the Interior to respect tribal sovereignty and stop violating the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.
“Our Minerals Council can and will receive autonomy over our Osage Minerals Estate.”
According to the suit, filed in March in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, DOI rejected the Osage Nation’s “final offer” to take over the work performed by the BIA’s Osage Agency as well as the Osage share of work performed by the BIA’s Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office in Muskogee.
The DOI, however, argues that the Osage Nation has yet to make a “final offer” under the provisions of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, the law that rules such compacts. The DOI also says that the amount of money the tribe is requesting is excessive and would result in a reduction of services and funding to other tribes.
The Nation proposed that the federal government would pay the Nation $4.87 million to take over the functions – $4.36 million of which would come from closing down the Osage Agency and $485,000 from costs associated with the regional office.
The Nation’s funding request included money for positions that have been vacant or unfunded, including four realty assistant positions for $287,000, two accounting technician jobs for $32,000 and 12 petroleum engineering technicians and an engineer for $1.1 million.
The Nation’s offer said that the vacant or unfunded positions should have been funded but were “reorganized and diverted away from the Nation’s benefit during protracted years of negotiation” after new positions were created in the wake of an Office of the Inspector General report that found BIA mismanagement at the Osage Agency.
Congress provided $2 million in funding for new positions to address BIA failings but after “it depleted those funds, the BIA began to divert Osage Nation tribal shares to fund the OAO (Osage Agency Office) positions in response to BIA mismanagement, the offer said.
“In summary,” the offer said, “the BIA in recent years used the Nation’s Tribal Shares to continue to fund the BIA positions in response to the OIG Report, but insisted that these positions are performing only inherent federal functions so that none of the funding is available for transfer to the Nation …” Thus, in 2016 – after the Inspector General issued its scathing report, the BIA determined that $1.4 million was available for transfer to the Nation, while in 2023 only $999,000 was – a reduction of more than $400,000.
On Aug. 13, both sides in the case filed upcoming schedules, specifically on when they will file documents related to a motion for summary judgment against the Nation by DOI. On or before Sept. 11, DOI plans to file for summary judgment because it has not waived its sovereign immunity based on its argument that the Nation has not formally made a “final offer.” The Nation intends to respond to that motion by Sept. 25, and the DOI will reply to that by Oct. 9 or 16 – DOI wants the latter date, but the Nation argues it doesn’t need the extra week.
“Defendants have diligently begun work on their motion for summary judgment and have concluded that numerous exhibits will be used to demonstrate that Plaintiff has failed to make a ‘final offer’ under the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act,” DOI said in the disputed scheduling proposal.
“Accordingly, Defendants expect the opposition and reply to require significant work.”
