(16) Native Hawaiians have also given expres-
sion to their rights as native people to self-deter-
mination, self-governance, and economic self-suffi-
ciency— 
(A) through the provision of governmental 
services to Native Hawaiians, including the pro-
vision of— 
(i) health care services; 
(ii) educational programs; 
(iii) employment and training pro-
grams; 
(iv) economic development assistance 
programs; 
(v) children’s services; 
(vi) conservation programs; 
(vii) fish and wildlife protection; 
(viii) agricultural programs; 
(ix) native language immersion pro-
grams; 
(x) native language immersion schools 
from kindergarten through high school; 
(xi) college and master’s degree pro-
grams in native language immersion in-
struction; 
(xii) traditional justice programs, and
(B) by continuing their efforts to enhance 
Native Hawaiian self-determination and local 
control; 
(17) Native Hawaiians are actively engaged in 
Native Hawaiian cultural practices, traditional agri-
cultural methods, fishing and subsistence practices, 
maintenance of cultural use areas and sacred sites, 
protection of burial sites, and the exercise of their 
traditional rights to gather medicinal plants and 
herbs, and food sources; 
(18) the Native Hawaiian people wish to pre-
serve, develop, and transmit to future generations of 
Native Hawaiians their lands and Native Hawaiian 
political and cultural identity in accordance with 
their traditions, beliefs, customs and practices, lan-
guage, and social and political institutions, to con-
trol and manage their own lands, including ceded 
lands, and to achieve greater self-determination over 
their own affairs; 
(19) this Act provides a process within the 
framework of Federal law for the Native Hawaiian 
people to exercise their inherent rights as a distinct, 
indigenous, native community to reorganize a Native 
Hawaiian governing entity for the purpose of giving
expression to their rights as native people to self-de-
termination and self-governance; 
(20) Congress— 
(A) has declared that the United States 
has a special responsibility for the welfare of 
the native peoples of the United States, includ-
ing Native Hawaiians; 
(B) has identified Native Hawaiians as a 
distinct group of indigenous, native people of 
the United States within the scope of its au-
thority under the Constitution, and has enacted 
scores of statutes on their behalf ; and 
(C) has delegated broad authority to the 
State of Hawaii to administer some of the 
United States’ responsibilities as they relate to 
the Native Hawaiian people and their lands; 
(21) the United States has recognized and re-
affirmed the special political and legal relationship 
with the Native Hawaiian people through the enact-
ment of the Act entitled, ‘‘An Act to provide for the 
admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union’’, 
approved March 18, 1959 (Public Law 86–3; 73 
Stat. 4), by— 
(A) ceding to the State of Hawaii title to 
the public lands formerly held by the United
States, and mandating that those lands be held 
as a public trust for 5 purposes, 1 of which is 
for the betterment of the conditions of Native 
Hawaiians; and 
(B) transferring the United States’ respon-
sibility for the administration of the Hawaiian 
Home Lands to the State of Hawaii, but retain-
ing the authority to enforce the trust, including 
the exclusive right of the United States to con-
sent to any actions affecting the lands that 
comprise the corpus of the trust and any 
amendments to the Hawaiian Homes Commis-
sion Act, 1920 (42 Stat. 108, chapter 42) that 
are enacted by the legislature of the State of 
Hawaii affecting the beneficiaries under the 
Act; 
(22) the United States has continually recog-
nized and reaffirmed that— 
(A) Native Hawaiians have a cultural, his-
toric, and land-based link to the aboriginal, in-
digenous, native people who exercised sov-
ereignty over the Hawaiian Islands; 
(B) Native Hawaiians have never relin-
quished their claims to sovereignty or their sov-
ereign lands;
(C) the United States extends services to 
Native Hawaiians because of their unique sta-
tus as the indigenous, native people of a once- 
sovereign nation with whom the United States 
has a political and legal relationship; and 
(D) the special trust relationship of Amer-
ican Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Ha-
waiians to the United States arises out of their 
status as aboriginal, indigenous, native people 
of the United States; and 
(23) the State of Hawaii supports the reaffir-
mation of the political and legal relationship between 
the Native Hawaiian governing entity and the 
United States as evidenced by 2 unanimous resolu-
tions enacted by the Hawaii State Legislature in the 
2000 and 2001 sessions of the Legislature and by 
the testimony of the Governor of the State of Hawaii 
before the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Sen-
ate on February 25, 2003. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) ABORIGINAL, INDIGENOUS, NATIVE
PEO-
PLE.—The term ‘‘aboriginal, indigenous, native peo-
ple’’ means people whom Congress has recognized as 
the original inhabitants of the lands that later be-
came part of the United States and who exercised 
sovereignty in the areas that later became part of 
the United States. 
(2) ADULT MEMBER.—The term ‘‘adult mem-
ber’’ means a Native Hawaiian who has attained the 
age of 18 and who elects to participate in the reor-
ganization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity. 
(3) APOLOGY RESOLUTION.—The term ‘‘Apol-
ogy Resolution’’ means Public Law 103–150, (107 
Stat. 1510), a Joint Resolution extending an apol-
ogy to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United 
States for the participation of agents of the United 
States in the January 17, 1893, overthrow of the 
Kingdom of Hawaii. 
(4) COMMISSION.—The term ‘‘commission’’ 
means the Commission established under section 
7(b) to provide for the certification that those adult 
members of the Native Hawaiian community listed 
on the roll meet the definition of Native Hawaiian 
set forth in paragraph (8). 
(5) COUNCIL.—The term ‘‘council’’ means the 
Native Hawaiian Interim Governing Council estab-
lished under section 7(c)(2). 
(6) INDIGENOUS, NATIVE PEOPLE.—The term 
‘‘indigenous, native people’’ means the lineal de-