Sponsors (32)
The bill preserves established Great Lakes names and avoids federal and local costs and administrative burdens, at the expense of restricting executive and local/tribal flexibility to rename features and potentially shifting decision-making, costs, and litigation risk onto Congress, states, and localities.
Federal employees and the public keep the long-standing official names of the five Great Lakes, preventing administrative confusion and sparing agency staff from having to implement or enforce any renaming.
States, local governments, businesses, mapmakers, and taxpayers avoid the direct costs of updating legal documents, signage, maps, and publications tied to lake names.
Prevents federal agencies from spending taxpayer dollars to rename Lake Ontario, protecting federal funds that would otherwise be used for implementation and related administrative work.
Indigenous tribes and other local or cultural groups (and the President) are constrained from pursuing name changes or symbolic recognitions for the lakes, limiting local and tribal ability to seek renaming for cultural or historical reasons.
Creates a statutory restriction that could require congressional approval for any future lake name changes, adding legislative delay and burden to what might otherwise be faster administrative or executive processes.
Could generate legal uncertainty and litigation over whether future symbolic or commemorative actions are 'substantially similar' to a prohibited renaming, increasing legal costs for agencies and taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Bars the federal government from renaming any of the five Great Lakes, voids a specific executive order renaming Lake Ontario, and prohibits federal funds to implement such renaming.
Official title: To prohibit the renaming of the Great Lakes and for other purposes.
Introduced August 31, 2026 by Debbie Dingell · Last progress August 31, 2026
Prohibits the President, the Secretary of the Interior, and other federal officers from changing, redesignating, or otherwise renaming the official geographic names of the five Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario). Declares Executive Order 14422 (which renamed Lake Ontario as "Lake America") to have no force or effect, bars issuance or enforcement of that order or any substantially similar executive action, and forbids federal funds from being used to implement such renaming actions.