The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation on Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, ending the twice yearly clock changes that have been observed across most of the country since the 1960s. The Sunshine Protection Act passed 308-117, with the presiding officer playing the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” on his phone as he read the final tally. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it faces a familiar obstacle, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who has vowed to block the measure over concerns about dangerously late winter sunrises. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called for an end to clock changes, strongly supports the legislation and declared it would be “a very nice WIN for the Republican Party.”
The debate pits public health and economic arguments against safety concerns rooted in geography. Supporters argue that changing clocks disrupts sleep, increases workplace injuries, contributes to more road accidents, and costs Americans hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost productivity. Keeping clocks an hour ahead year round would provide more evening daylight, potentially boosting economic activity during winter months. Representative Frank Pallone, the bill’s Democratic co sponsor, noted that commuting and work habits have changed and far fewer school children walk to school now than in decades past. “It’s time to finally end the process of springing forward and falling back,” he said. The White House echoed this, stating the measure would “eliminate the time, hassle, and cost involved in changing clocks twice a year.”
Critics, led by Cotton, warn that permanent daylight saving time would mean the sun rises an hour later on winter mornings, leaving children traveling to school and commuters heading to work in darkness. In some northern and western locations, the sun would not rise until nearly 9 a.m. or later at the height of winter, 9:45 a.m. in Williston, North Dakota, by Cotton’s calculation. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the American Medical Association, and other major medical associations have called for daylight saving time to be abolished entirely in favor of permanent standard time, arguing that standard time aligns more closely with natural circadian rhythms. “Of all the options available to us, permanent DST is the worst solution,” one sleep scientist told Congress. The airline industry has also raised concerns, with Airlines for America warning that the change would have “considerable implications for aviation, including passenger disruption, crew and aircraft positioning, and domestic and international connectivity issues.”
The legislative history is instructive. The Senate passed an identical bill by unanimous consent in March 2022, but several senators later said they would have objected had they known it could pass, and the House never took up the measure. The US briefly enacted year round daylight saving time in 1974 to reduce energy use during the oil crisis, but it proved deeply unpopular, particularly the dark winter mornings, and Congress repealed it later that year. Hawaii and Arizona already do not observe daylight saving time, and the current bill allows states that do not observe it or that voted to adopt permanent standard time before the law changed to maintain their current time. With Cotton planning to ask Senate Majority Leader John Thune not to bring up the legislation for a vote, and with several senators on both sides opposed in committee, the House’s sunny victory may once again set in the Senate’s procedural twilight.
