Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 114 Part 5.djvu/860

 114 STAT. 2874 PUBLIC LAW 106-568—DEC. 27, 2000 have been denied equal access to Federal low-income housing assistance programs available to other qualified residents of the United States, and that a more effective means of addressing their housing needs must be authorized; (11) consistent with the recommendations of the National Commission on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Housing, and in order to address the continuing prevalence of extraordinarily severe housing needs among Native Hawaiians who either reside or are eligible to reside on the Hawaiian Home Lands, Congress finds it necessary to extend the Federal low-income housing assistance available to American Indians and Alaska Natives under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 (25 U.S.C. 4101 et seq.) to those Native Hawaiians; (12) under the treatymaking power of the United States, Congress had the constitutional authority to confirm a treaty between the United States and the government that represented the Hawaiian people, and from 1826 until 1893, the United States recognized the independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii, extended full diplomatic recognition to the Hawaiian Government, and entered into treaties and conventions with the Hawaiian monarchs to govern commerce and navigation in 1826, 1842, 1849, 1875, and 1887; (13) the United States has recognized and reaffirmed that— (A) Native Hawaiians have a cultural, historic, and land-based link to the indigenous people who exercised sovereignty over the Hawaiian Islands, and that group has never relinquished its claims to sovereignty or its sovereign lands; (B) Congress does not extend services to Native Hawaiians because of their race, but because of their unique status as the indigenous people of a once sovereign nation as to whom the United States has established a trust relationship; (C) Congress has also delegated broad authority to administer a portion of the Federal trust responsibility to the State of Hawaii; (D) the political status of Native Hawaiians is comparable to that of American Indians; and (E) the aboriginal, indigenous people of the United States have— (i) a continuing right to autonomy in their internal affairs; and (ii) an ongoing right of self-determination and self- governance that has never been extinguished; (14) the political relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people has been recognized and reaffirmed by the United States as evidenced by the inclusion of Native Hawaiians in— (A) the Native American Programs Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 2291 et seq.); (B) the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1996 et seq.); (C) the National Museum of the American Indian Act (20 U.S.C. 80q et seq.); (D) the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq.);

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