WASHINGTON (States Newsroom) — The U.S. House approved a measure Thursday that would codify part of President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
The bill — which was passed on a nearly party-line vote, 211-206 — calls on the head of each federal agency to “update each document and map of the Federal agency in accordance” with the new name within six months of enactment.
U.S. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was the only Republican to vote against the measure.
“Our country has more important issues to worry about,” Bacon said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.
“The Administration is making great strides securing our border and cutting waste in government. But we need to focus on the reconciliation bill and how to strengthen Medicaid for every American who needs it. Renaming bodies of water is not a priority and sends a bad message to the rest of the world,” he said.
All Democrats stood in opposition. Sixteen House members did not vote, including eight Republicans and eight Democrats.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who introduced the bill in January, said “this is such an important thing to do for the American people,” during the floor debate Thursday.
The Georgia Republican said “the American people deserve pride in their country, and they deserve pride in the waters that we own, that we protect with our military and our Coast Guard and all of the businesses that prosper along these waters.”
The legislation is unlikely to move far in the Senate, where it would take 60 votes to advance. Republicans control the chamber 53-47. The Senate has 45 Democrats, but two independents, Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, caucus with the party.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in April sided with The Associated Press and granted the wire service a preliminary injunction in its case against the Trump administration over allegations of denied access to restricted spaces at the White House due to its editorial decision to use “Gulf of Mexico” rather than “Gulf of America.”
The bill says “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’” and directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to “oversee the implementation of the renaming.”
In a Statement of Administration Policy on Tuesday, the White House said it “strongly supports” passage of the bill and that Trump’s advisers would recommend he sign it into law if the legislation were presented to him in its current form.
Ahead of the vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urged a strong “no” against the bill, which he described as a “silly, small-minded and sycophantic piece of legislation.”
“What are we doing, folks? There are serious issues that the American people want us to confront,” the New York Democrat added.
