COLUMBUS – A group of Ohio lawmakers have written to President Obama, asking him to reverse the decision to change the name of Mt. McKinley in Alaska to the native Athabascan name Denali.
Senator Rob Portman, central Ohio Congressmen Steve Stivers and Pat Tiberi, House Speaker John Boehner and nine other Ohio lawmakers have sent a letter to President Obama asking him to stay the decision to rename North America’s tallest peak, claiming Interior Secretary Sally Jewell skirted the authority of a federal board and ignored pending legislation.
Jewell announced on Sunday that she used a ‘secretarial order’ to change the name, citing a 1947 federal law which permits her to name geographic features if the Board of Geographic Names does not act within a “reasonable” period of time.
“This unilateral action is troubling to many Americans as this honor speaks volumes of respecting our nation’s heroes and their patriotic work to better our nation. It is also upsetting that William McKinley’s legacy has been tarnished by a political stunt to promote a partisan agenda,” the legislators wrote in their letter. “Your administration has shown a troubling lack of respect for the rule of law and the separation of powers between the branches of our federal government.”
The Mount McKinley National Park was designated by an Act of Congress in 1917 and the Ohio congressional delegation introduced a bill in January to keep the name, according to the website Cleveland.com.
The lawmakers claim the Board of Geographic Names “has a long-standing policy of not taking up any petitions for name changes while there is pending legislation in Congress.”
A bill submitted by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, also in January, repeated a proposal to renaming Mt. KcKinley as Denali.
The dispute over changing the name of the mountain dates back at least to 1975, when the Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed it to Denali, a move immediately opposed by Ohioans in Congress.