House approves bill renaming Gulf of America

WASHINGTON (TNND) — House Republicans passed a bill on Thursday that will formally codify the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America into federal law, though it faces an unlikely path toward passage in the Senate.

The bill, being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was introduced after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January ordering the Interior Department to rename the gulf and update a federal database of names for geographic features across the country. It passed the House on a 211-to-206 mostly party-line vote.

“This is the first step to codify into law one of President Trump’s favorite executive orders. This bill recognizes the entrepreneurs supporting the Gulf’s economy and the service men and women who protect its waters,” Greene said in a post on X.

The bill would make it harder for future presidents to reverse the name change, which House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters was part of the motivation behind passing Greene’s bill.

“As the previous administration made it painfully clear, executive orders can be undone and overwritten, and that’s why we have to move it through the legislative process — and we are,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We’re going to pass Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to permanently rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.”

The bill is also unlikely to get through the Senate, where Republicans do not have enough seats to overcome the filibuster.

If it were to become law, federal agencies would have 180 days to make sure records are updated to reflect the name change and require the chairman of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to ensure “any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico” is a reference to the Gulf of America.

Trump has taken interest in changing other long-standing names of geographic features and is considering changing how the federal government will refer to what is now known as the Persian Gulf ahead of a trip to the Middle East next week.

The president said at the White House that he was considering a plan to begin calling the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf and will make a decision before his trip.

“They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.”