House passes bill to make 'Gulf of America' name change permanent
The future isn't sure in the Senate, where Republicans will need Democrat votes.
WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led House voted Thursday to to codify President Donald Trump's Gulf of America executive order.
It passed with a 211 to 206 vote with Rep. Don Bacon being the only Republican to vote against the measure.
The legislation, which was introduced by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, codifies an executive order from President Donald Trump to rename the body of water.
Its fate in the Senate is more of a challenge, given that it will need bipartisan cooperation to overcome a filibuster. Leader John Thune has not indicated whether hell put the measure on the floor for a vote.
"Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper or other record of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico shall be deemed to be a reference to the 'Gulf of America,'" the bill text states.
The measure also instructs each federal agency to update each document and map in accordance with the name change, which Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will oversee.
"Codifying the rightful renaming of the Gulf of America isn't just a priority for me and President Trump, it's a priority for the American people. American taxpayers fund its protection, our military defends its waters, and American businesses fuel its economy," Greene argued in a post on X.
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One of Trump's first executive orders when he started his second term was to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed the bill.
"We've been working around the clock to codify so much of what President Trump has been doing to make sure that we put these into statutory law so that it can't be reversed and erased by an upcoming administration," Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday.
House Democrats, including Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have criticized the measure.
"Why is the top thing that House Republicans -- going to do this week on their legislative agenda renaming the Gulf of Mexico?" Jeffries said at a news conference Monday. "Because Donald Trump and House Republicans are on the run. They are on the run."
