US House to weigh bill making daylight saving time permanent

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives is due to take up legislation this week that would make daylight saving time permanent across the country, as another bipartisan group of lawmakers presses a rival proposal to keep standard time in place year-round instead.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet at 4pm on Monday to decide whether any amendments will be allowed before the full chamber considers the measure later in the week. In May, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the Sunshine Protection Act by a 48-1 vote.

The debate revives an issue that has repeatedly divided US lawmakers. In March 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but the House did not act on it amid opposition. Under the current proposal, states would be allowed to opt out. Hawaii and Arizona already do not observe daylight saving time.

Competing proposals before lawmakers

Backers of permanent daylight saving time say changing clocks twice a year disrupts sleep, increases workplace injuries and contributes to more road accidents. They also argue that having more evening daylight in winter could encourage economic activity.

At the same time, Representatives Pat Harrigan and Mary Gay Scanlon introduced the Sunshine for Our Kids Act last week. Their bill would make standard time the permanent nationwide default, while still allowing individual states to choose daylight saving time if they want to adopt it.

Harrigan and Scanlon have argued that standard time keeps mornings more closely aligned with natural light and the body's circadian rhythms. President Donald Trump has also strongly called for ending the twice-yearly clock change.

History and opposition

Daylight saving time, which moves clocks forward by one hour during the summer part of the year, has been observed in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s. The country used permanent daylight saving time during World War Two and adopted it again in 1974 in an effort to cut energy use.

That 1974 experiment, however, was widely unpopular and Congress later repealed it the same year. If the current bill clears the House, the Senate would again have to decide whether to consider it.

The measure is facing resistance from Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, and other opponents. Cotton has said permanent daylight saving time would bring very late winter sunrises and send many children to school before daylight in large parts of the country.