Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 38, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 2021 — Statement by OHA Chair Carmen Hulu Lindsey Regarding HB499 [ARTICLE]

Statement by OHA Chair Carmen Hulu Lindsey Regarding HB499

I am extremely disappointed by the Governor's recent decision to not consider HB499 for a veto. This decision by the Governor ensures that this controversial bill, whieh OHA and many other organizations and individuals repeatedly raised concerns about in opposition during and after the 2021 legislative session, will inevitably now become law. HB499 will representthe most damaging law to Native Hawaiian rights enacted in nearly a decade. Forty-year lease extensions, directly negotiated between current lessees and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, threaten to prevent future generations of Native Hawaiians from ensuring the best uses of our public trust lands. Moreover, such extension authority also ignores and perpetuates the historical injustices inflicted upon the Native Hawaiian people, who eonhnue to struggle with the intergenerational traumas that resulted from the theft of their lands and the disruption of their sovereignty, by allowing the current and future state administrations to foreclose any opportunity for Native Hawaiians to assert their claims to their stolen ancestral lands for four decades at a time. I now eall upon the Governor to issue a moratonum on the extension of any leases under HB499, unless and until the adoption of administrative rules that ean ensure transparency and accountability in the negotiation and issuance of lease extensions, and that sufficiently recognize and protect the unresolved claims of Native Hawaiians to the stolen, "ceded" lands that may be eneumbered under this measure. I will also work with my fellow trustees and the community to pursue a repeal of HB499 next legislative session. In the meantime, we will remain steadfast in our commitment to this 'āina and the lāhui, and we look forward to continuing to work with our community to helpfacilitate and furtherthe state's constitutional duties and moral and legal obligations to Native Hawaiians and the public trust.