Barry Moore

A new 215-foot, six-lane cable-stayed bridge is the signature feature of the $3.2 billion Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, which could be under construction this fall.

But the bridge doesn’t have a name, at least not yet.

U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, said Tuesday that it should be named the “Gateway to the Gulf of America, the Donald J. Trump” bridge. He said he had spoken with White House staffers about the idea and had approached Alabama lawmakers, including state Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, about sponsoring a resolution to name the bridge after the president.

“They are working on it,” said Moore, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, during a breakfast forum hosted by the Mobile Chamber. “It’s that sort of thing, (Trump) will care about. It will make it to his radar screen. It will make to him. He’ll have an interest in that.”

Moore said he had not spoken directly with Trump about the proposal. Instead, he said the idea emerged during a recent congressional luncheon where White House staff members discussed how Trump embraced a South Carolina project after state lawmakers approved resolutions renaming two highways and a bridge in honor of Trump and the late conservative activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk.

A future I-73 project in South Carolina will bear Trump’s name following a vote in March. The decision drew opposition from Democratic lawmakers, none of whom supported the resolution.

Moore said he later approached Faulkner about pursuing a similar effort in Alabama. Faulkner was not immediately available for comment. The Alabama Legislature is not expected to reconvene for its 2027 regular session until January 2027.

“If you do that for me at the state level, I’ll take that to the boss and say, ‘Hey sir, we’ll name this bridge after you,’” Moore said about his conversation with Faulkner.

Moore said naming the bridge after Trump would be fitting given that the president’s first major stadium-style campaign rally took place at Mobile’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium nearly 11 years ago, on Aug. 21, 2015.

Moore, who received Trump’s endorsement during this spring’s Senate primary, was among the speakers at that rally. At the time, he was a member of the Alabama House of Representatives.

Moore said he has not discussed the proposal with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), which is overseeing the bridge project. An ALDOT spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

“If the state wants to do something, I think the Legislature works closely with ALDOT, and at the end of the day, I don’t think ALDOT will have a problem with it,” Moore said. “I’ve talked with (state legislators) about it. They tell me they are moving on it and hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to tell the president about it.”

Partisan Response

Any legislative effort to name the bridge after Trump is likely to face opposition from Democratic lawmakers, similar to the debate that unfolded in South Carolina earlier this year.

State Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, said lawmakers should focus instead on issues that improve the lives of South Alabama residents.

“This bridge represents an economic driver for South Alabama,” Drummond said. “It will be moving commerce for South Alabama, to help improve the lives of the people who live in South Alabama. The renaming represents nothing that will improve the lives of the people of South Alabama.”

The proposal could also revive a longstanding debate over which presidential administration deserves the most credit for advancing the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project.

The project’s lone direct federal grant came in 2024 when the Biden administration awarded $550 million through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the largest federal infrastructure grant in Alabama history.

Some Republicans, however, view the Trump administration’s support for restructuring the project as equally significant.

The most consequential change came when federal officials approved splitting the project into two phases. The first phase includes construction of the new bridge and restriping the existing Bayway to add a lane in each direction.

The second phase, which has no cost estimate or construction timeline, calls for demolishing the existing 7.5-mile Bayway between Mobile and Daphne and replacing it with new infrastructure.

In July, some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, said scaling back the initial scope helped make the project financially feasible amid escalating construction costs.

Before the project was divided into phases, ALDOT estimated that constructing both a new bridge and a replacement Bayway simultaneously would cost more than $5 billion. Project documents indicated that building both components at the same time would exceed available funding and threaten the project’s financial viability.

The current plan requires the approval of a Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan to finance up to 49% of the project’s costs. The bonds would then be repaid through tolling, which could cost motorists up to $7.70 each way if they do not have a frequent-rider ALGO Pass.

Asked whether naming the bridge after Trump could reignite debate over which administration played the bigger role in advancing the project, Moore said the immediate priority is completing construction.

“Right now, the plan is to get it finished. Right now, that’s the administration we are working with,” Moore said.

Drummond said the project should not become entangled in partisan politics, noting that the project’s only direct federal grant was awarded during Biden’s presidency.

“This is one time we need to take politics out of an issue,” she said.

Republican Jerry Carl, the GOP nominee for the U.S. House from Alabama’s 1st congressional district, which includes Mobile, said he believes naming the bridge after Trump is something that should be considered if it means getting additional federal money to lower the project’s bonds and reduce the tolls.

“The bridge is a national security issue, and from a national security standpoint, we have to finish it,” he said.

As for its renaming, Carl said that it is the “least of my concerns.”

Gulf of America Connection

The naming proposal could also place the phrase “Gulf of America” back into the political spotlight.

Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” through an executive order shortly after taking office in 2025, directing federal agencies to adopt the term. The order did not apply to non-federal agencies, private companies or foreign governments.