The U.S. Senate is on the clock. In a matter of speaking. Or ticking.
The House of Representatives approved a bill earlier this year to thrust the nation onto permanent Daylight Saving Time. In other words, the House voted to ditch the twice-a-year ritual of springing forward and falling back. Now it’s up to the Senate to sync up.
"Around the country, people are going to be excited because they don’t have to go back and forth," opined Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., one of the biggest advocates of shifting to year-round Daylight Saving Time.
Under this temporal regime, Florida and many southern states would benefit from "more" sun later in the afternoon and evening in the winter.
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Scott isn’t the only one who says time should expire for Daylight Saving Time.
"People are sick and tired of having to change their clocks twice a year. It is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly. For Cities and States with Watchtowers, and hard to reach places, it costs Millions of Dollars," declared President Donald Trump in a post on his social media site Truth Social.
It’s unclear whether Trump was trying to reach voters with allegiances to Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan when writing about "Watchtowers." But if the President has his way, the times won’t be "A Changin’," later this fall. We’d be welded to Daylight Saving Time.
President Trump continued.
"This is an issue that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents can unite behind. I am asking Republican Senators to release their holds, and allow the hotline to clear on the Republican side. LET’S PASS THE SUNSHINE PROTECTION ACT, ASAP," he wrote.
Let’s dial things back a bit here and dissect the title of this bill: "The Sunshine Protection Act."
First of all, there is a finite amount of sunshine available, period. Any time of the year. Bellingham, Wash. scores only about eight-and-a-half hours of sunlight around the winter solstice in December. And whether we’re on Daylight Saving Time or Standard Time, the sheer amount of sun doesn’t change.
The only thing that differs is at what time Bellingham gets that sun. Under Standard Time (following the autumn clock shift) the earliest the sun sets in Bellingham is 4:13 p.m. in mid-December. But under permanent Daylight Saving Time, you can sing good day, sunshine at 3:13 p.m.. The problem is that the sun goes down really early in northern states in the winter under year-round Daylight Saving Time. But southern states — like Florida — benefit.
The reason Congress even bothers with this issue is because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the House and Senate authority to establish the "Standard of Weights and Measures." So all Congress is doing is determining a temporal regimen.
In short, if Congress says it’s 3 o’clock, it’s 3 o’clock. But if we fall back in November, then 3 o’clock is really 2 o’clock.
However, leave it to Congress to create the illusion that it is safeguarding something for the voters, such as "protecting" sunshine. Or, giving everyone an "extra hour" in the winter. It’s just saying that everything would start earlier.
That’s all.
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Regardless, the push to embrace Daylight Saving Time isn’t partisan.
"People across New Mexico and across so many parts of the country don't want to be changing those clocks day after day," said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.
Luján survived a stroke several years ago. He believes that a singular time, year-round, would provide health benefits.
"I can speak to it from the perspective of all the neurologists that I've spoken to as well. There are more and more health concerns with moving that time change back and forth," said Lujan.
And Daylight Saving Time advocates say passing the Sunshine Protection Act is more pressing than you think.
"You know, that might be more important to my people back home than the SAVE America Act," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. That’s a reference to the touchstone of the president’s legislative agenda which is stymied in the Senate. The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship in order for people to vote.
But there are detractors. We heard from southern lawmakers. But many in New England fret about how little sunlight they score in the winter anyway.
"You want your kid standing out on the bus stop in the dark at 10 am?" asked Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
That’s an overstatement. The latest the sun comes up anywhere in Vermont in late December is 7:28 a.m. But shift that to permanent Daylight Saving Time and you’re still in the dark until 8:28 a.m. But you get the idea.
And there’s no consensus from residents of states which are split by two time zones. A staggering 14 states feature two time zones: Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas. Eastern Time and Central Time cleaves Indiana.
"Hoosiers care a lot about time," said Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind. "They also have fundamental disagreements within the state, about what time it is or should be at any given moment."
And there’s the old adage that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This potential toggling of the time worries Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas – who represents one of the states which falls within two time zones.
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"Didn't we do this once before?" asked Cornyn.
"In the ‘70s," I told Cornyn. "And we reversed it in six months."
"Yeah, well that should be a cautionary tale," observed the Texas senator.
The U.S. faced an oil shock thanks to an embargo by OPEC in the early 1970s. President Richard Nixon – and many in Congress – believed they could "save energy" by moving the U.S. to year-round Daylight Saving Time. Congress approved the move in late 1973. But the decision proved so unpopular that future Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., prepped a bill to undo the time change. People abhorred having less sunlight in the morning. The bill passed in August, 1974.
Interestingly, had Nixon not resigned in August 1974 due to Watergate, it’s possible he would have fought the whiplash time change.
In other words, if you want to blame someone for why we switch our clocks twice a year, we’ve found your culprit: Deep Throat.
It was the Senate which okayed a bill to nix the biannual time change in 2022. But the House never acted. Now the House has acted. The President is engaged. But it’s up to the Senate.
The Senate must take action by the end of this Congress. Time is running out. And they can’t change the clocks for that.