President Donald Trump on Monday renewed his push to end the nation’s twice-yearly clock changes, urging the Senate to pass Daylight Saving Time legislation.
“By the way, speaking of that, let’s get rid of Daylight Saving Time stuff,” Trump told a crowd in Michigan after an unrelated comment about clocks.
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“Hopefully, the Senate’s going to approve that one. The House approved it,” he added.
The House earlier this month passed a measure that would establish year-round Daylight Saving Time nationwide. The legislation would next need to be taken up by the Senate, but its prospects remain uncertain.
Proponents of the legislation argue it would spare Americans from having to change their clocks, disrupting young children’s sleep schedules and arguably causing more seasonal depression.
But critics say it could have economic consequences, particularly for farmers who would have to wrestle with later sunrises.
Trump has long criticized the semiannual clock change, though his position on whether the country should remain on Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time year-round has shifted over time.
In May, he praised the advancement of the Sunshine Protection Act out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying he’d work hard to make it law. The legislation passed the full House 308 to 117.
“I am going to work very hard to see The Sunshine Protection Act signed into Law. 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 Truth Social at the time. “It will also be a very nice WIN for the Republican Party. Take it!”
Will we ever do away with the time change?
North Carolinians have broadly supported measures to eliminate the biannual time change, but at the same time lawmakers have struggled with how it should be implemented because of the impacts permanent daylight saving time would have during the winter months between November and March.
If the Sunshine Protection Act were to pass, the latest sunrise we'd see in Raleigh would be 8:33 in the morning, and the earliest sunset would just after 6 p.m. That means many school and work commutes would happen before the sun comes up during the darkest months of winter.
leep experts have advocated for the elimination of the biannual time change because of the health impacts and risks it can have, but they also have mixed feelings on moving to daylight saving time instead over standard time because of safety risks, particularly for school children having to navigate dark morning commutes.
It is also worth noting this would not be the first time the U.S. has tried to make daylight saving time permanent. During World War II, permanent daylight saving time was implemented as "war time" as a way to conserve energy usage, but it didn't stick around after the war.
During the energy crisis of the 1970s, then-President Richard Nixon signed permanent daylight saving time into law in 1974. It was initially a popular decision at the time, but it took less than a year for many people to change their mind after an uptick in children being hit by cars in the dark. Schools across the country started delaying their start times until after the sun came up, and by October of that year Congress voted to switch back to standard time.