The Gulf of Mexico’s redesignation as the Gulf of America was conceived almost 20 years ago during the Bush Administration — a fact that President Trump failed to mention when he announced his desire to change the name in the weeks leading up to his inauguration.

A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that staffers at the U.S. Geological Survey tried to cover up that it was an old idea. 

Immediately after Mr. Trump announced his desire to make the name change official, staffers at the USGS immediately debated among each other how to handle a flood of media inquiries and if they should suppress information about a previous effort in 2006 to rename the waterway.

“No one needs to know this has come up before. At least right now,” Jennifer Runyon, a U.S. Board on Geographic Names researcher with the USGC, wrote in a group text chat with colleagues on January 7, obtained through a FOIA request by NOTUS.

In a separate message to the U.S. Geological Survey’s executive secretary for domestic names, Shellie Zahniser, Ms. Runyon urged that the information be held back.

“My advice is to keep this background on the lowdown, as it has no bearing on the current situation,” she said before providing the executive secretary notes from a July 2006 meeting of U.S. Geological Survey’s Domestic Naming Committee 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,’” the summary reads.

The proposal was then presented to the full Board of Geographic Names, which 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.”

USGS officials were allegedly unsure how to respond to a host of inquiries from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, ABC News, as well as overseas news outlets, that wanted answers on how Mr. Trump’s declaration would be handled.

“There’s a benefit to avoid commenting at all right now,” USGS chief public affairs officer Rachel Pawlitz wrote in an email sent to key officials on January 7.

The director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geospatial Program, Mike Tischler, responded, “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.”

Ms. Runyon, who often speaks with news outlets about how America names its geographic features, took issue withholding  information from the press.

“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,” she said in a message to an unspecified colleague.

Once Mr. Trump signed the executive order, officials at the USGS scrambled to deal with the name transition.

“Has there been any discussion on whether ‘Gulf of Mexico’ references should be changed to ‘Gulf of America’ in upcoming publications?” chief of communications for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Office of Communications and Publishing, Vic Hines, wrote to several executives.

“We understand there is a lot of confusion on this issue, and we are trying to get additional guidance,” responded Deputy Associate Director Matthew Huggler.

The confusion subsided on February 10 when the Board of Geographic Names officially changed the name to “Gulf of America” in accordance with the executive order.