I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, ''Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control?'' ''Well, we have no mechanism to do it,'' I was told.

Land began to be seen as something to be owned privately and exploited for private interests, and never was entirely reconciled with the old ideas that land should be utilized in common for the good of all.

Are the Native Hawaiians going to be able to control their own land and their own money? When the land was seen as worthless, nobody gave a damn.

A good portion of the airport is on ceded lands, and lease money was paid for that. So the state's collecting lease money because all of a sudden ''worthless'' land now has an airport on it.

Once Howard Dean lost the Iowa primary, there was no licking of wounds; there was no baying at the moon. There was, let's move to another stage now. We've got the right idea here.

We believe there is not going to be any undermining of the environment.