The issue has long divided lawmakers on largely geographical lines, rather than partisan ones.
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WASHINGTON – Time may be running out for a bill to stop changing the clocks.
President Donald Trump has advocated for years to make daylight saving time permanent, ending the twice-yearly practice that forces people in much of the country to lose an hour in the spring and gain it again in the fall.
He has called the decades-old ritual of resetting the clocks an inconvenient nuisance and praised the House of Representatives for passing a bipartisan bill last week to stop much of the country from doing it.
The legislation may stall in the Senate, however, where lawmakers are divided largely along geographic rather than partisan lines over the wisdom of such a change.
Just a few months out from the midterm elections, the issue is causing a unique rift among elements of both parties. The debate is eliciting passionate responses from lawmakers and voters on opposing sides, underscoring how intimately the shift, if enacted, would impact Americans.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, told reporters last week it wasn’t clear whether the latest bill could get the necessary 60 votes to pass. In the past, he personally voted against stopping the clock change.
“There’s a lot of interest in it from members on our side,” Thune said. “Some for, some against.”
Critics within the Senate GOP, chief among them Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have done little to hide their disapproval of scrapping standard time, when the sun sets an hour earlier. Arkansas’ other Republican senator, John Boozman, said he shared his colleague’s view.
“It’s hard to get things done when you have positions that split everybody,” he told USA TODAY. “The easiest thing to do is leave them alone.”
Dark school bus rides a big concern
Congress passed a similar change for energy conservation reasons during the global oil crisis of the 1970s – only to reverse it after it became clear how deeply unpopular permanent daylight saving was with most Americans.
Proponents of the new push, driven by Florida lawmakers, point to evidence suggesting that losing an hour every spring causes Americans to forfeit sleep, adversely affects their health and hurts the performance of students and athletes. Small businesses also suffer, said Rep. Vern Buchanan, who introduced the House-passed bill, dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act.
“That additional hour a day, at least in Florida but across the country, makes a big difference in terms of doing business,” he said on the House floor.
Yet opponents have said making daylight saving time permanent could hurt businesses by forcing Americans in some parts of the country to report to work before sunrise. Construction workers, for instance, could face safety hazards.
Parents may not want their kids getting on school buses without sunlight either, said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. He was unsure the Sunshine Protection Act could even come up for a Senate vote.
“My best guess is there aren’t votes to pass it,” he told USA TODAY. “The impact, generally, is kids would be going to school, walking to the bus, in the dark.”
Others are reserving judgment until the Senate debates the legislation in earnest. Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, told USA TODAY he thinks the bill “has a chance to pass.”
“I have an open mind on it,” he said.
Even if Thune decided to bring the legislation to the floor, time is running out in the 119th Congress. The midterms are just over three months away – and the Senate will be largely out of session for two of those months. In the meantime, there are arguably more pressing priorities with end-of-September deadlines, including avoiding another government shutdown and reauthorizing the farm bill.
That compressed timeline, along with bipartisan opposition, may spell doom for the Sunshine Protection Act before it gets much further in Congress. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, predicted in a recent CNN interview: “I don’t think, to use a pun, it’ll see the light of day.”
Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
