WASHINGTON — Critics and supporters of a bill creating a process for a future Native Hawaiian government to gain federal recognition will square off today before a Senate panel, the day after an identical bill sailed through a House committee without opposition.

The House Natural Resources Committee approved the Akaka bill yesterday on a voice vote.

"What a great day," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, a sponsor of the bill. "I'm very, very pleased."

Efforts to change the bill during the committee's discussion were expected but never took place.

"There were no amendments, no objections and it passed unanimously," said Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who attended the House panel session. "It's a great first step in the House."

Today's hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on an identical bill includes a representative from the Justice Department, which opposes the bill, on a panel with supporters Mark Bennett, Hawai'i's attorney general, and Apoliona.

A second panel includes Viet D. Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor, and former assistant attorney general who wrote a report supporting the bill, and opponent William Burgess, a spokesman for Aloha for All, which argues it would create a race-based government.

The bill, which was first brought before Congress in 2000, would create a process for a Native Hawaiian governing entity to be formed and gain federal recognition. The new entity would be able to negotiate with the governments of the United States and Hawai'i over the disposition of Native Hawaiian land, assets and other resources.

This was the fourth time since 2000 that it received House committee approval. The full House passed it once but it has remained stymied in the Senate.

The next step is for the House leadership to schedule a floor vote on the bill.

"I think we're going to do well," Abercrombie said. "I will keep pushing it and talking to other members, particularly members from the West and the conservative members."

The bill may not find such smooth sailing on the House floor as it did in committee.

In March, the House Republican leadership showed some of its stance on Native Hawaiian issues when it tried to block a bill dealing with a Native Hawaiian federal housing program.

In an e-mail alert telling members to oppose the housing bill, the Republican leadership said the bill would give Native Hawaiians an arrangement like that between the federal government and American Indian tribes.

The alert said the Supreme Court has ruled that Native Hawaiians are not comparable to the American Indian tribes and "suggested that special legal privileges for Native Hawaiians are rightly unconstitutional."

But during the House hearing on the Native Hawaiian bill, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a committee member and an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, said the bill was an indigenous people issue and the House Republican conservatives should take a harder look at it.

"This is the ultimate of a conservative's bill," said Cole, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee. "It is about allowing people to govern their own affairs, to control their own property and their own destiny."

Rep. Dale E. Kildee, D-Mich., committee member, said the Native Hawaiian bill was about justice for an indigenous people who have suffered since their kingdom was overthrown with American help in 1893.

"This will be a step toward justice," he said.

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.