When Donald Trump said on Jan. 7 that he’d rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” upon retaking office, the idea seemed to spring from the deeper waters of Trump’s mind.
But it hadn’t.
Amid a flurry of media requests about Trump’s proposal, government officials at the U.S. Geological Survey scrambled to keep secret a failed effort in 2006 to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America — seemingly to avoid exacerbating the situation already spiraling out of their control, according to internal records obtained by NOTUS via a Freedom of Information Act request.
“No one needs to know this has come up before. At least right now,” U.S. Board on Geographic Names researcher Jennifer Runyon wrote on Jan. 7 in an internal text chat with colleagues.
Runyon, who has regularly spoken to news outlets about how the United States names its geographic features, urged her colleagues to exercise caution about the George W. Bush-era renaming push, the source of which is unclear.
“My advice is to keep this background on the lowdown, as it has no bearing on the current situation,” Runyon separately wrote to Shellie Zahniser, the U.S. Geological Survey’s executive secretary for domestic names.
The Bush-era discussion about renaming the gulf took place during a U.S. Geological Survey’s Domestic Naming Committee meeting in July 2006. Runyon sent Zahniser minutes from the meeting.
“The proposed replacement is Gulf of America, a name that the proponent suggests is more appropriate as ‘Mexico is not the major border of this gulf,’” a summary of the meeting reads.
The Domestic Naming Committee kicked the matter up to the full Board of Geographic Names, which in August 2006 unanimously decided “not to recommend approval of the proposed name change, citing long-standing local, regional, national, and international use and historical significance of the existing name,” according to the meeting notes Runyon shared.
Nineteen years later, the matter popped up again, and the agency was taken by surprise.
“Oh my,” wrote Mike Tischler, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geospatial Program, in a chat message to agency public affairs specialist Gina Anderson, attaching a Fortune article headlined: “Goodbye Gulf of Mexico—Trump says he’s renaming it ‘Gulf of America.’”
Reporter inquiries quickly piled up about Trump’s declaration — from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, ABC News, E&E News. Outlets as far-flung as Switzerland and Poland also wanted answers from the government agency that generally oversees the naming and renaming of U.S. geographic features.
Within USGS, multiple officials were unsure how to respond.
The agency’s chief public affairs officer, Rachel Pawlitz, sent an email on Jan. 7 to key officials, saying, “there’s a benefit to avoid commenting at all right now” to media inquiries.
Tischler responded: “Does that [mean] we should just not respond? Or is there a canned ‘we have no comment on this topic’ statement?”
Pawlitz replied: “I know this is not a typical recommendation, but this is not a circumstance where I would even respond at all. If the situation evolves, we may later want to say something but there’s nothing good that would even come out of a ‘no comment’ email response at this point.”
In a Jan. 8 chat message to an unnamed colleague, Runyon grumbled about the de facto press blackout: “It doesn’t feel right to just ignore them, but when it comes to the media, we have to trust [the Office of Communications and Publishing] knows what it’s doing.”
The Gulf of America storyline continued to gain attention, particularly after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would introduce legislation to rename the gulf per Trump’s wishes.
“I can’t imagine a bill on this would pass, but we are in interesting times,” Jason Stoker, the U.S. Geological Survey’s elevation and science applications lead, wrote in a chat message on Jan. 8 to an unnamed colleague, who replied, “I’m not taking any bets one way or another.”
Around the same time, a top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official got involved. Rear Adm. Benjamin Evans, the U.S. national hydrographer and NOAA Office of Coast Survey director, noted in an email to colleagues that Trump’s comments had resulted in media questions. He said the International Hydrographic Organization, which has no authority to rename bodies of water, was offering a “stock response.”
“Going to get interesting,” NOAA official Tara Wallace wrote back.
It certainly did: Immediately after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the new president signed an executive order calling for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the Gulf of America.
“Things are certainly heating up,” Tischler of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geospatial Program wrote to Anderson, the public affairs specialist, early on Jan. 21. “I received a call on my personal line from a NYT reporter yesterday asking for comment on President Trump’s actions. I was rather short with the reporter for contacting me on my personal line and declined to comment.”
The New York Times was hardly the only news organization seeking information. A journalist from NPR requested an interview about Trump’s decision to change the name of Denali, the mountain in Alaska, to Mount McKinley.
Soon after, Tischler sent a memo to Jennifer Lacey, a USGS associate director of core science systems, with several requests. Among them was to be “non-responsive to media” on the recommendation of agency public affairs officials.
Meanwhile, the agencies set about implementing the executive order.
“NOAA - Marine Chart Division is gearing up to update our charts and release them,” NOAA official Tara Wallace wrote Tischler and several others.
Jeremy Kirkendall, a senior account manager at Esri, a geographic information system software company, on Jan. 21 wrote Tischler with an inquiry: “We have a lot of staff supporting the border patrol and they’ve been asking when the Gulf of Mexico will be officially changed in GNIS. Do you have any idea of how quickly that change may go through?”
Tischler wrote Kirkendall: “We are working through implementation of name changes associated with the Executive Order, but no schedule has been established at this point.”
By the end of January, officials continued to grapple with the “Gulf of America” transition.
“Has there been any discussion on whether ‘Gulf of Mexico’ references should be changed to ‘Gulf of America’ in upcoming publications?” wrote Vic Hines, chief of communications for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Office of Communications and Publishing, wrote several executives.
“We understand there is a lot of confusion on this issue and we are trying to get additional guidance,” Deputy Associate Director Matthew Huggler wrote back.
The confusion would subside soon after when the Board on Geographic Names officially renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” on Feb. 10 — at least as far as the United States is concerned.
Several officials at the U.S. Geological Survey, including Tischler, Anderson, Zahniser and spokesperson Leslie Jones, did not respond to voicemails and emails Tuesday. Pawlitz’s government phone and email address are no longer functioning. The U.S. Geological Survey’s press office also did not respond to requests for comment.
As for Runyon, the U.S. Geological Survey researcher who unearthed the failed effort in 2006 to rename the Gulf of Mexico, she could not be reached for comment. She appears to no longer be working at the agency: The agency’s website now lists her as a “former employee.”
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Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist.