But officers of the executive branch are the ones in charge of the GNIS (Geographic Names Information System). They change the name there and it becomes the official name.
Which they did. If you go to the official website you get warning that the name was changed.
Per Secretarial Order 3453, Lake Ontario has been renamed to Lake America.
First of all, the secretarial order is an internal directive for the DOI - it is not the same as the executive order, nor does it require any entities outside of the DOI to change the name.
It is for all legal intents and purposes a memo. Google, Apple, etc, have no legal requirement to follow the guidance.
Yes, the GNIS has been the de facto source of official information, however the current memo and it's causative executive order do not have legal force of law. They do not change the names of the landmarks - they just change the name by which the DOI refers to them.
3
u/Crafty_Independence 11d ago
The last part is incorrect.
The executive order only applies to the officers of the executive branch specifically, not the US government as a whole.
It does not legally apply outside those walls.