Osage Nation Rejects Proposed Oil Rules, Citing Red Tape

The Osage Nation rejected sweeping new rules proposed last month by the US Department of Interior covering the tribe’s massive mineral estate.

The draft rules would hamper oil and gas production, according to Osage Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, reducing a critical source of income for many of the tribal nation’s shareholders in the Osage Mineral Estate, a nearly 1.5-million-acre collection of oil and gas rights.

The Osage Nation said the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is part of the Department of Interior, should work with the tribe’s minerals council to come up guidelines that would be more favorable for oil ...