The House is scheduled to consider the Sunshine Protection Act next week, a proposal that would end twice-yearly clock changes and keep daylight saving time in place year-round while allowing states to opt out.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent across the country, according to a July 9 notice.
The Sunshine Protection Act, sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., would end the current system of moving clocks forward and backward twice each year. The bill would allow states to opt out before the change takes effect.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the measure in May with a 48-1 vote. A notice posted by the House Committee on Rules said the bill is scheduled for consideration by the full House next week.
Buchanan has argued that ending the twice-yearly clock changes would improve daily life and could bring public safety and health benefits. In a May statement, he said the change could support public health, reduce traffic accidents, lower crime and encourage more outdoor activity.
“Ending the clock change is a commonsense reform that will improve everyday life for millions of Americans,” Buchanan said.
President Donald Trump has also indicated support for the proposal. In a May 22 Truth Social post, Trump said he would “work very hard” to get the bill signed into law.
Trump said the current time-change system requires significant work and expense, writing that cities and states spend “hundreds of millions of dollars” each year changing clocks.
“Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive,” Trump wrote.
“We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day — And who can be against that — This is an easy one!”
The United States first used seasonal time changes more than a century ago during World War I and again during World War II. Congress later passed a 1966 law that allowed states to decide whether to observe daylight saving time, while requiring each state’s decision to apply uniformly across its territory.
Most of the country currently changes clocks twice a year. Most of Arizona and all of Hawaii do not observe the time shift. Daylight saving time also is not observed in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Congress has considered similar proposals before. In 2022, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sponsored a bipartisan bill to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide. That measure passed the Senate but was never brought to a vote in the House.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., tried to move the bill quickly through the Senate in October 2025, but senators did not reach consensus.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., opposed the measure, warning that permanent daylight saving time would lead to winter sunrises at an “absurdly late hour.”
“Such a change to the nation’s clocks had never happened before, except as an emergency rationing measure during wartime,” Cotton said in his floor speech at the time.
The House vote next week will determine whether the latest effort to end the twice-yearly clock change advances further in Congress.
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