Landry signs order for ‘Gulf of America’ change to all state laws, documents
17th March 2025 · 0 Comments
By Greg LaRose
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — Following the lead of President Donald Trump, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed an executive order Thursday that directs state agencies to change all references to the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana laws and other documents to the “Gulf of America.”
Landry, who signed the order before he spoke at a business luncheon in Terrebonne Parish, invited state lawmakers in attendance to join in for the ceremony.
The same order also urges Congress to make the same name change to the body of water and establish what the governor called a “uniform state territorial jurisdiction of water limits.”
“That means we’re going to all get the same amount of miles off the coast as everyone else,” Landry told the audience.
Florida and Texas claim fishing and energy exploration rights to waters 9 nautical miles off their respective Gulf coasts, but the limit in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is three miles. The difference goes back to when Florida and Texas gained their statehood in 1845. Both were allowed to maintain the offshore boundaries established when they were Spanish territories, while the other three states stayed at the three-mile mark then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson established in 1793.
Members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation have tried unsuccessfully for decades to extend its offshore water to nine miles.
Landry’s new executive order had not been posted to the Secretary of State’s online register or the governor’s website as of this newspaper’s presstime. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for a copy of the order.
Trump led the way in late January with his own executive order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It also removed the indigenous name Denali from the tallest mountain peak in the United States and restored it to Mount McKinley, which had been its federal designation from 1917 until 2015.
On his way to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Trump declared Feb. 9 as Gulf of America Day. He said his actions were taken to “restore American pride.” Google Maps adopted the new moniker, and then shut off online comments after user reviews were overwhelmingly negative.
Efforts in other Gulf Coast states to make the change are in their nascent stages, with some officials questioning the cost.
A bill in the Florida Legislature would follow Trump’s branding for the Gulf of America. It advanced narrowly from a state senate committee Monday, although a majority of Floridians said they don’t support the change in a recent poll.
In Alabama, legislation was introduced last month to require the use “Gulf of America” at the state and local level. The proposal has yet to receive a committee hearing, but it has already caused a stir at the newly renamed Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico in Mobile.
The author of the bill, Republican Rep. David Stanbridge of Blount County, said it would not apply in instances that “would impose an undue burden,” citing language in the measure.
After Trump first floated the name change after his inauguration in January, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on social media the gulf should be named after his state. Three bills in the ongoing session of the Texas Legislature would make the Gulf of America change, though they have yet to receive a committee hearing.
There are no proposals in the Mississippi Legislature to rename the water body.
This article originally published in the March 17, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
