the island is planned to be given back to the hawaiian people. in 1993, the u.s. congress passed a law that "recognized the cultural importance of the island, required the navy to return the island to the state, and directed the navy to do an unexploded ordnance (uxo) cleanup and environmental restoration" . the turnover officially occurred on november 11, 2003, but the cleanup has not yet been completed. the u.s. navy was given $400 million and 10 years to complete the large cleanup task, but this work has gone much slower than planned.