Twenty-five Bureau of Indian Affairs buildings were slated to be closed as part of a Department of Government Efficiency plan to reduce government spending. This included the Osage and Pawnee agencies.
The buildings were on a list released in late February by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The 25 buildings represented 27% of the BIA buildings in operation.
However, the Osage Agency will remain open, according to Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, who is negotiating a new lease with the BIA. He said the Nation is negotiating a three-five year lease with the General Services Administration with an early termination clause and will be paid $160,000 per year.
Standing Bear spoke with officials at the Department of the Interior and was told the priority of the current administration is oil and gas permitting and that it should be streamlined, not underfunded.
The original lease was set to expire in September. Standing Bear said he was aware of the building being on a list for closure, but said he was already negotiating with the GSA to extend the lease and that if no deal was met, they would continue on a month-to-month basis.
Standing Bear said it became a political issue when it showed up on the Senate Committee’s list, but they were already in negotiations for a new lease.
Negotiations for a new lease on the building come amidst support from the Osage Shareholders Association and the Osage Minerals Council. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs’ list of buildings to be shuttered appeared weeks after Osage Superintendent Adam Trumbly was let go because of a reduction in workforce at the federal level. He was later reinstated.
The BIA office in Pawhuska is written in the Osage Allotment Act, which designated the mineral estate for 2,229 original Osage Allottees. The Act requires that there be an agency to negotiate and manage leases.
Standing Bear requested that a clause be put into the lease if the Bureau of Indian Affairs is ever downsized, the Nation needs to renegotiate the unused space and lease it to somebody else. He doesn’t have the new lease in hand with that provision yet.
Once learning of the slated closure of the building and the exit of Trumbly, the Minerals Council and the shareholders immediately expressed their concern and penned a letter in support of Trumbly and keeping the agency open.
The BIA is currently holding a series of meetings to receive feedback from tribal leaders as they plan to “streamline” services.
“We have been reassured that the trust responsibility will stay in place,” Standing Bear said. He acknowledges that some are worried the relationship may be eroding under the many federal reductions in workforce and funding cuts to government agencies.
When Standing Bear was re-elected in 2022, his inauguration speech heavily referenced self-governance. In his speech, he referenced the Minerals Council.
“Minerals Council … 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,” he told the crowd at the Osage Casino in Tulsa.
That’s a sentiment he’s echoing today as tribal nations prepare for negotiations over Trump’s new budget that greatly reduces the budget of the BIA.
Self-Governance Negotiations
Standing Bear and other tribal officials attended an annual meeting about self-governance, May 12-13, at the Osage Casino in Pawhuska. Also in attendance at the meeting was the Office of Self-Governance within the Department of the Interior.
The meeting allows for the Nation to negotiate contracting services, like health care, away from the federal government, which is allowed under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.
“If they can show they, the United States Department of Interior, that a position is an inherent federal function, under the law, then that stays with them. We believe most of the functions at the Osage Indian Agency, BIA, are not inherent federal functions,” Standing Bear said.
Whether the Nation negotiates with the BIA to take over some of the agency functions remains to be seen. Some Osage Shareholders expressed deep opposition to this at their May quarterly meeting earlier this month. Last year, according to Standing Bear, was the first time the Nation asked to take over the functions involving the Mineral Estate. It was denied. So, Standing Bear sued them.
Last year, it became known that the Nation filed a lawsuit against the DOI over what they called “stalling tactics” on the issue of self-governance.
Osage News reached out to Candy Thomas, who is in the Nation’s office of self-governance. She told Osage News that matters pertaining to what the Nation is negotiating to compact away from the federal government are confidential. But, she did say Mineral Estate functions weren’t part of it.
“The Shareholders and the Mineral Estate doesn’t have anything to do with the compact with the BIA,” said Thomas in the interview.
“And, we would not be taking over any functions that have anything to do with the Mineral Estate.”
