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Washington: It has been a sleeper issue – pun intended – in American politics for decades. This week, members of US Congress will vote on whether to end the twice-yearly changing of the clocks, and make daylight saving time permanent.
A bill called the Sunshine Protection Act is scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives, in a push led by politicians from the sunny state of Florida, but whose support spans the country’s vast geography and political spectrum.
The bill would make DST the permanent default time across the nation, thereby extending sunlight later in the evening during winter, but meaning sunrise would be as late as 8.30am or even 9am depending on location. States could opt out in favour of permanent standard time.
And the bill is ostensibly popular. It has 34 co-sponsors in the House, three of them Democrats, and 18 in the Senate, including eight Democrats. The most powerful backer of all is US President Donald Trump.
“It’s time that people can stop worrying about the ‘Clock’, not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice-yearly production,” Trump wrote on social media in May.
“Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks. Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 19 American states have already passed laws that would see them switch to permanent daylight saving time if Congress permits them. They include Florida (which was first in 2018), Tennessee, Delaware, Maine, Georgia, Minnesota, Alabama and Texas.
Another is the state of Washington on the west coast. If DST were made permanent, sunrise for the 4 million people of the Seattle metropolitan area would occur at nearly 9am in the depths of winter.
There are also vocal opponents of the change in Congress, including Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Republican, who told the Senate the bill “would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour”.
He noted America has observed permanent daylight saving time before: during World War II, and briefly under president Richard Nixon to conserve fuel during the 1970s oil crisis. It was repealed following a significant public backlash.
“If permanent daylight saving time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans,” Cotton told the chamber.
“For many Arkansans, [it] would mean the sun wouldn’t rise until after 8am or even 8.30am during the dead of winter. Three months out of the year, kids … would start school ahead of the sun.”
He noted Americans on the western side of timezones in the northern states would be worst off. In Grand Rapids, the sun would rise as late as 9.15am, and in Willeston, North Dakota, it would be almost 9.45 am when the sun rose, Cotton said.
Previous attempts to pass similar bills have petered out. In 2022, the Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent but stalled in the House.
No version has passed the House, but in May, the current iteration was endorsed by the bipartisan House Energy and Commerce Committee 48 votes to one.
Vern Buchanan, the Republican congressman leading the push, said the bill would go to a vote on Tuesday (US time). Americans were “tired of the biannual clock change”, he said.
“And the evidence is clear that permanent daylight saving time can improve public health, reduce traffic accidents, lower crime and encourage more outdoor activity.”
There is also an alternative plan gathering steam among legislators: a bill to adopt permanent standard time, rather than permanent daylight saving time. This would mean earlier sunsets in summer, but winter sunshine would stay the same as it is now.
One of the key advocates for this idea is Jay Pea, who founded a lobby group called Save Standard Time. Pea lives in Arizona, one of only two US states that do not observe daylight saving anyway (the other is Hawaii).
Pea calls DST “a fast, false clock”, claiming it disrupts sleep patterns and is bad for humans’ overall health. “Standard Time is the honest and natural clock, set to the sun (also known for this reason as God’s time), which balances morning and evening light fairly,” he says.
The American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine also support moves to abolish the status quo and maintain standard time for the entire year.
Polls suggest the status quo, whereby Americans change their clocks in spring and fall (autumn), is relatively friendless. In October, a poll of 1300 Americans by the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago and the Associated Press found just 12 per cent favoured the current system, while 47 per cent were opposed. Four in 10 people were neutral.
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