Nearly a Year After Trump’s ‘Mount McKinley’ Name Change, Alaska Republicans Are Still Fighting for ‘Denali’

Since President Donald Trump renamed the highest peak in North America from Denali to Mount McKinley in January, Alaska’s Republican senators have been trying to change it back.

Almost a year after its introduction, Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s bill to redesignate the mountain’s name as Denali was a topic of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee hearing this week. There, Michael Caldwell, an associate director of the National Park Service, reiterated in his testimony that the administration opposes the bill.

Murkowski first introduced the legislation in February, along with her state colleague Sen. Dan Sullivan, shortly after Trump changed the name to Mount McKinley via an executive order on his second day in office. She does not anticipate the standalone bill getting a vote before this session of Congress ends, but a provision for the Denali name change is now in the Senate’s appropriations bill for the Interior Department — a sign that Murkowski won’t let up on the issue.

“To me, this is about respecting the original stewards of the land who gave this fitting name. Now, I’m not surprised by the testimony that we’ve received from the department today, but I would encourage the administration to reexamine the position on the bill. The multidecade effort to name this mountain Denali, rightfully, is a bipartisan issue in this state,” Murkowski said in the hearing, urging the administration to reconsider its position.

Republican Sen. John Hoeven told NOTUS on Wednesday that appropriators are still discussing the Denali provision in the Interior appropriations bill while they’re working through other holds, though he wouldn’t get into specifics.

“We’re still talking with the White House,” Murkowski told NOTUS on Wednesday.

The White House did not respond to NOTUS’ questions about whether Trump would veto the entire bill if the Denali name change stays in, or how the administration is working to solve the naming dispute.

Rep. Mike Simpson, chairman of the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, said Tuesday that he doesn’t know “yet” if that provision will end up in his bill.

“I know that it’s in the Senate bill. To me, that’s an issue with the Alaska delegation and the president, and they’ll solve that one way or another,” Simpson said. He added that he hasn’t discussed the provision with Murkowski “in detail.”

Sullivan joined Murkowski in opposing the mountain’s renaming earlier this year and said at the time, “The naming rights already went to the Alaska Native ancestors of my wife and daughters’ people.”

“The great Athabaskan people, patriotic people, 10,000 years ago named it Denali, so I like that name,” Sullivan said Tuesday after NOTUS told him about the administration reiterating its position in the hearing.

Denali means “the great one” in its Koyukon Athabascan Alaska Native translation. Alaskans in general “feel very, very strongly” about keeping that name, Murkowski said.

“When I fly into Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage there, before we even get close to landing, people are looking out the window to see if they’re going to catch a glimpse of Denali today. When the mountain is out, we talk about it,” Murkowski said. “Well, my friends, Denali translates as ‘the great one.’ What more fitting name for such an incredible peak?”

Hoeven, who was also at Tuesday’s hearing, told NOTUS that pushing for the renaming now may not be wise if the Senate wants Trump’s cooperation in the appropriations process.

“I would support the president’s position because he’s working with us to get these approps bills done, and we want his help and support to get these done, so to put something in there that he’s opposed to could impede our effort, and we’re on the clock, too,” Hoeven told NOTUS.

“I’m always respectful of Senator Murkowski’s opinion and her state, but in this case, you know, to add that when the president doesn’t support it could be problematic,” he added.

For Alaska’s only U.S. House member, Rep. Nick Begich, a federal name change would only mean so much.

“We have so many other priorities that are so much more important than what we call Denali,” Begich told NOTUS on Wednesday. “I think Alaskans, most Alaskans, call that mountain Denali and have for a long time and will continue to do so, regardless of what laws we pass in Washington.”