Florida Senator Files Bill to Americanize El Golfo de México in State Laws

A Senate Republican on Tuesday filed a bill that combs through state laws and would replace references to the “Gulf of Mexico” with the “Gulf of America” after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to rename the gulf.

Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach [who sponsored last year’s ill-fated bill to eliminate local control over vacation rentals] filed the 70-page bill (SB 608) for consideration during the legislative session that will start March 4. Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, issued a statement expressing support for the bill.




Also Tuesday, Rep. Juan Carlos Porras, R-Miami, filed a bill (HB 549) that would require state agencies to update geographic materials to reflect the Gulf of America name. Porras’ bill also would require county school boards and charter-school boards to buy instructional materials and library materials that reflect the change.

After Trump issued the executive order last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis jumped on the issue. In an order he issued about a winter storm, DeSantis referred to an “area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America.”

But that couldn’t change state laws, which include dozens of references to the Gulf of Mexico. DiCegilie’s bill noted that the “Gulf of Mexico spans approximately 1,700 miles along the United States coastline, of which 770 miles are located along the Florida coast.”

It said Trump’s executive order directed the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior to “rename the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America’ in order to recognize the importance of the body of water to the United States.”

As an example of the changes that would be made by the bill, legal descriptions of boundaries of gulf-front counties from Escambia to Collier include references to the Gulf of Mexico, which would change to the Gulf of America. That includes the boundaries of DiCeglie’s home county, Pinellas.




But other references in laws to the Gulf of Mexico are a little more obscure. For instance, a law about the use of tourist-development taxes refers to counties “adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.”

Other laws include references to the Gulf of Mexico in addressing coastal development issues. One such law expresses intent for the Department of Environmental Protection to “establish coastal construction control lines on a county basis along the sand beaches of the state fronting on the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Straits of Florida.”

Another law defines coastal barrier islands as meaning “geological features which are completely surrounded by marine waters that front upon the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Straits of Florida and are composed of quartz sands, clays, limestone, oolites, rock, coral, coquina, sediment, or other material, including spoil disposal, which features lie above the line of mean high water.”

In addition to the state laws, ordinances in gulf-front counties include references to the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump’s executive order addressed federal references to the gulf’s name, directing the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which works under the Department of the Interior, to “provide guidance to ensure all federal references to the Gulf of America, including on agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications shall reflect its renaming.”

–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

Note: FlaglerLive will not be changing Golfo de México’s name.