President Donald Trump is urging the U.S. Senate to stop running out the clock on a House-approved plan to make daylight saving time permanent.
The goal is to end the semiannual ritual of changing clocks that most Americans have come to loathe.
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.
I am the first to admit that I despise the annual “Spring Forward” time change. However, this plan does have many fans.
I’d much rather wake up, shower, dress, eat breakfast and get to work/school before sunrise and have extra daylight after work/school to do family things before sunset.
Bring on permanent Daylight Savings Time, despite the stupid name. pic.twitter.com/gDp01uIl8b
— Shawn Sonnentag (@ShawnSonnentag) August 17, 2026
Yet this approach has been tried before. In response to the 1973 oil embargo and energy crisis, Congress passed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973
This act put most of the country on DST continuously for an intended trial of roughly 16 months. Though it sounded appealing at the time, the move became very unpopular.
At first, the emergency daylight saving time bill signed into law by President Richard Nixon was well-liked. In December 1973, it had a nearly 80% approval rate, according to the New York Times.
By February, that had dropped to 42%.
Soon, parents were sending their children off to school in morning darkness — in some parts of the country, the sun would not rise until nearly 9 a.m. — armed with flashlights, prompting safety concerns. There were multiple incidents nationwide of children being struck by vehicles while on their way to school, including eight fatalities in Florida.
The U.S. Department of Transportation found no clear evidence on traffic accidents in relation to year-round daylight saving time and determined that energy savings were a meager 0.4% to 1.5%.
Interestingly, concerns about dark mornings have also led to bipartisan opposition to this proposal.
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, has argued against permanent daylight saving time, warning that winter mornings would become darker for children and workers in parts of the country. Cotton spoke against the Sunshine Protection Act on the Senate floor in October 2025.
Other senators who have voted against permanent DST include Ted Budd, Deb Fischer, Jerry Moran, Tim Sheehy, Dan Sullivan, Roger Wicker and Todd Young on the Republican side, and Lisa Blunt Rochester, Tammy Duckworth, Amy Klobuchar, Gary Peters and Jacky Rosen among Democrats, as reported by CBS News.
Some medical experts also argue that changes to the timing of natural light could have unintended consequences.
Dr. Daniel Rongo, a UT Health physician who specializes in sleep medicine, says the body relies on morning light as a natural signal.
“Our bodies know when it’s daytime and our body knows when to go to sleep,” Dr. Rongo said.
He says early morning light is especially important because the body naturally reacts to it when we wake up.
He says that misalignment can lead to real-world consequences.
…“Such as sleep deprivation and feeling sleepy at times where we really should be awake, especially during driving, whenever we’re at school, trying to do our jobs,” he said.
The 1974 experiment shows that permanent daylight saving time may sound appealing in theory, but the lived reality of dark winter mornings can quickly turn public enthusiasm into opposition.
I will continue to hate the Monday after “Spring Forward,” but I also enjoy fall’s return to Standard Time and the morning light it restores.
If the Senate remains unmoved by Trump’s arguments, Americans are likely to keep the twice-yearly clock change for the foreseeable future.
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