Gulf of America Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 377, I call up the bill (H.R. 276) to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the ``Gulf of America'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. 276.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 276, sponsored by Congresswoman Greene of Georgia.
Throughout the history of the United States, the executive branch has renamed our public lands and waters. This legislation codifies a portion of President Trump's Executive Order No. 14172, which directed the Board on Geographic Names to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. President Trump signed this executive order on his first day in office.
Enacting this legislation will help make President Trump's historic action permanent and ensure consistency in references to laws, maps, regulations, and records of the United States.
The Gulf of America is critical to the United States because of its energy resources and ecological significance. This renaming symbolizes Republicans' commitment to putting America first, and honors the Gulf of America's important role in unleashing American energy and our Nation's return to greatness.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Greene), the lead sponsor of this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, just earlier this week, this very committee spent 14 hours in a markup on our reconciliation plans that are part of the big, beautiful bill; 14 hours to make America energy dominant, 14 hours to unleash American resources and American jobs. Those 14 hours were mainly spent hearing 121 Democratic amendments to undermine that bill. They wanted to undermine America's energy. They wanted to undermine America's ability to mine our own products. They wanted to undermine America's ability to manage our forests and our resources and take care of this country.
Now, there are a lot of bills that come to this floor to rename things. They might not be the most important bills, but usually they go on a suspension vote because both sides agree we can do renaming, but this one got elevated to a much higher level, so here we are under a rule bill debating whether or not we call the current Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or if we leave it as it is.
Our friends across the aisle have one objective: to undermine everything we want to do to make America first, and this is no exception.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, our friends across the aisle want to talk about being serious, but when we marked up this legislation in committee, here are some of the serious amendments that they put out.
Number one, they wanted to rename it not the Gulf of America, but the gulf of Helene, after a hurricane. That wasn't good enough, so they decided to file an amendment to name it the Gulf of America if we rejoin the Paris climate accord. That is real serious. As my friend already mentioned, they wanted to take this bill, it was obviously not germane, they wanted to rename the planet, planet Trump. That is how serious they are in their debate.
I left out one of the other amendments my colleagues across the aisle filed. They wanted to rename the Gulf the gulf of ignorance. Now, I don't know where they came up with that one. I know they oppose offshore oil and gas production. I know they oppose American energy independence. I know they have a special affinity for fish that aren't in the Gulf and attack recreational fishermen in their endeavor to go out and spend time with their family and catch fish. I don't know what part of the Gulf that they think is so ignorant that they wanted to rename the Gulf the gulf of ignorance, but you can look it up. They filed that amendment. We obviously voted it down.
They had no problem renaming the Cannon Caucus Room the Nancy Pelosi Caucus Room. It is not like this is the first thing that has ever been renamed in this Congress, but we will go ahead and have our debate, and they can vent their frustration on the Republicans and really on our country as they continue.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Greene).
Mr. Speaker, a lot of accusations have been made about serious legislation, about working, about the things that have happened since this new administration has come into office. I would like to recap some of the things that have happened since this new administration has come into office.
Number one, they spent a lot of time reversing a lot of bad executive orders that the previous administration put in place. There were executive orders that did put America last. We have an administration now that is working every day to put America first.
We saw Congress take many actions on Congressional Review Acts to undo bad rules that the previous administration put in place.
Don't believe the accusation that Republicans aren't working. We have 11 committees that have reconciliation instructions, and 8 of those committees have marked up those instructions already. There are instructions on a big, beautiful bill to put America first and to create national security. We will use our resources at home to allow people in America to have a job and a career where they can raise families and grow communities. We are working on policies to avoid a $4 trillion to $5 trillion tax increase on every American.
Mr. Speaker, I believe my friends across the aisle are concerned about a piece of legislation that is going to make a huge difference.
It is a piece of legislation that is going to reverse the destructive policies that their party has put in place over many years. It is a piece of legislation that is going to focus on getting our fiscal house in order and letting Americans keep more of their hard-earned income.
We will develop our resources here at home and become less dependent on China, less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and all those things that over the years have been eroded away from our American economy and from Americans.
Mr. Speaker, if they want to complain about renaming the Gulf the Gulf of America, they can complain about that all day. It gives them something to do other than to talk to Americans about the real policies that Republicans are looking at putting in place. It gives them something to do other than make up scare tactics, which is their normal playbook, and to take anything that happens and say, oh, they are going to cut Social Security or they are going to cut Medicare.
We can't even touch Social Security in budget reconciliation. Democrats know that can't happen in budget reconciliation. Yet, they still put those scare tactics out. They talk about what bills are going to do before bill text has been released.
It is because Democrats are on the defensive to protect the Big Government that they have created over time, while Republicans want to put government closer to the people, take power out of Washington, D.C., and truly put America first.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Greene).
Mr. Speaker, as we wrap up this so-called debate today, I want to remind everyone of something that they are not seeing on the news every day like they were several months ago, and that is hordes coming across our southern border.
I want to remind people of how much the illegal drugs and human trafficking have stopped on our southern border.
I remind people of that because it was just a few weeks ago that President Trump stood in this Chamber. He addressed the joint session of Congress, and he said something that I think was the most important thing he said that night. He said that we have come to find out we didn't really need different laws. We just needed different leadership.
This debate, as my friends will maybe want to call it a debate, has been really nothing but an attack on President Trump. They are using this piece of legislation to go at President Trump.
I want to remind everybody of something President Trump has said many times. He said: ``They are coming after me because I am standing up for you.''
That is exactly what is happening today. They are coming after this piece of legislation and equating it to President Trump because he is standing up for the American people.
This legislation before us simply follows through on a day one executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I thank Congresswoman Greene for advancing it. I yield back the balance of my time.
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