(Photo via the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information)
Iowa lawmakers have advanced a bill that would require Iowa schools to replace in educational materials any references to the Gulf of Mexico with “Gulf of America” and “Denali” with “Mount McKinley.”
House Study Bill 97 comes weeks after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. Department of the Interior would work with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to rename these two geographic formations. Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, was renamed Denali in 2015 after 40-years of advocacy from Alaska leaders. Alaska state lawmakers have called for Trump to reverse his executive order on renaming the mountain.
The Gulf of Mexico is in international waters. Though part of its shore is in the U.S., it is shared with Mexico and Cuba. While the directive could influence how the U.S. federal government refers to the body of water, it would not necessarily change the name used by the international community or private organizations, such as mapping platforms and media organizations.
Educational companies that provide materials to U.S. schools would not necessarily be required to refer to the body of water as “the Gulf of America” under Trump’s directive. But the change could be required in Iowa school textbooks and handouts under the legislation brought forward by GOP House lawmakers.
Michelle Johnson with the Iowa Association of School Boards said her organization was registered undecided on the bill as they’re still waiting to learn more about the impact and implementation of Trump’s executive order.
“How does an executive order impact what local schools do?” Johnson said. “We don’t deal with that super often, so we’re just kind of waiting to see what happens. There probably would be a cost associated with this — it would be new handouts, new information, that would be given to students. So there would be something to consider with cost when it comes to giving materials to students.”
Heaven Chamberlain, a speaker with the liberal organization “B—— Get Stuff Done,” said her big question on the legislation was, “Why is this needed?” Chamberlain said lawmakers should be focused on improving funding for Iowa’s K-12 education system rather than printing new materials with reference to the new names for natural formations.
“We have a budget surplus, but we’re not spending it on education,” Chamberlain said. “I don’t know what’s going on. Why are we printing pamphlets for children when we could be buying them textbooks and investing in higher paid wages for teachers and actually investing in school buildings?”
Rep. Mary Madison, D-West Des Moines, did not sign off on the bill at the subcommittee meeting, saying it was a “political” bill that doesn’t take into consideration the manner in which people in both areas refer to those geographic features.
“I think it’s unnecessary,” Madison said. “It’s an additional cost. … The only person that’s upset or wants to change it, is for political reasons, and I don’t think we have to jump every time somebody wants to do something, especially when it costs us money that we won’t put into our public schools.”
Rep. Bob Henderson, R-Sioux City, said the U.S. Interior Department has already moved on changing the name to “Mount McKinley,” and said that he believed referring to the southern body of water as the “Gulf of America” was more fitting.
“(It) would be more appropriate to be called the Gulf of America, only because about half of that gulf is bordered by America — by the United States — then the other half is bordered by Mexico,” Henderson said. “Both, of course, are in either North America or Central America. So the Gulf of America seems to be a more appropriate name for that, even though it has been about, I think, probably close to 200 years it has been known as Gulf of Mexico.”
The legislation advanced 2-1 and will be available for consideration by the House Education Committee.