President Donald Trump is pressing senators to approve permanent daylight saving time after the House overwhelmingly passed the Sunshine Protection Act, but opposition over dark winter mornings and warnings from sleep specialists have left the measure stalled.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
President Donald Trump has intensified his campaign to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, publicly pressuring Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas as the House-passed Sunshine Protection Act remains stuck in the Senate amid disputes over school safety, winter darkness and potential health consequences.
The House approved the Sunshine Protection Act on July 14 by a 308-117 vote, with 193 Republicans, 114 Democrats and one independent supporting the legislation. The measure would eliminate the twice-yearly clock changes for most Americans by keeping daylight saving time in place throughout the year.
Its prospects have since dimmed in the Senate. The chamber adjourned without taking up the legislation and is not expected to return before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, leaving little immediate opportunity for the bill to advance. Cotton has emerged as one of its most prominent Republican opponents, objecting in particular to the late winter sunrises that permanent daylight saving time would produce.
Trump escalated the dispute Saturday by posting what he said was Cotton’s personal cellphone number and encouraging Arkansas residents to contact the senator. The president had spent the previous day criticizing Cotton’s opposition and urging Senate Republicans to move the legislation.
“For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it’s very easy to do, it only takes one!” Trump wrote.
Cotton has argued that although he shares widespread frustration with changing clocks every spring and fall, permanent daylight saving time would create a different set of problems by shifting an hour of daylight from the morning into the evening during winter.
“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton wrote. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
Cotton’s objection can prevent supporters from moving the legislation quickly through unanimous consent, a Senate procedure that allows bills to advance rapidly when no senator objects. The bill could still be pursued through the Senate’s normal legislative process, but the chamber’s schedule and unresolved opposition have prevented action so far.
Trump argues that year-round daylight saving time would provide Americans with more useful daylight later in the day while benefiting businesses, sports and recreation. He has also argued that eliminating the seasonal clock changes could reduce stress, workplace disruption, traffic accidents and crime associated with earlier evening darkness.
Cotton and other opponents have focused on what would happen at the other end of the day.
Under permanent daylight saving time, winter sunrise would occur roughly an hour later than it does under standard time. In northern and western portions of some time zones, that could mean children traveling to school and adults commuting to work well before sunrise. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has also raised concerns that communities in parts of his state could remain dark well after 9 a.m.
The dispute has revived memories of the country’s previous experiment with winter daylight saving time.
Congress enacted the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act during the 1973 energy crisis, putting most of the country on daylight saving time beginning Jan. 6, 1974. The change was intended as a two-year experiment that proponents hoped would reduce energy consumption by moving more daylight into the evening.
Public dissatisfaction developed quickly as families encountered unusually dark winter mornings. Congressional records from the period show lawmakers expressing concern about schoolchildren walking to school or waiting for buses before sunrise.
Congress changed course later that year. The experiment was amended in October 1974 to restore standard time during the darkest winter months, after what federal records described as negative public reaction to dark mornings for schoolchildren.
A subsequent federal review found that some of the purported benefits of expanded daylight saving time were difficult to establish. A Congressional Research Service account of the experiment noted that the National Bureau of Standards found no significant energy savings or overall difference in traffic fatalities, while finding statistically significant evidence of increased morning fatalities among school-age children during the test period, although investigators could not determine whether daylight saving time itself caused the increase.
Cotton has repeatedly invoked that history in arguing that the appeal of later evening sunlight can change once voters experience winter mornings under permanent daylight saving time.
The debate also extends beyond questions of convenience and traffic safety.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine supports ending seasonal clock changes but recommends permanent standard time rather than permanent daylight saving time. Sleep specialists say standard time more closely aligns human activity with the natural cycle of morning light and evening darkness that regulates the body’s circadian system.
“Permanent, year-round standard time is the best choice to most closely match our circadian sleep-wake cycle,” Dr. M. Adeel Rishi, a sleep medicine specialist and lead author of an academy position statement, has said. “Daylight saving time results in more darkness in the morning and more light in the evening, disrupting the body’s natural rhythm.”
The academy’s updated medical position statement says light is a primary regulator of the body’s internal clock and that permanent standard time provides the closest alignment between the social clock, biological clock and solar day.
Medical research has associated circadian misalignment and insufficient sleep with cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, mood disturbances and other health problems. Researchers have also documented short-term increases in some cardiovascular events and safety problems surrounding the spring transition into daylight saving time.
The evidence is more nuanced, however, than claiming that permanent daylight saving time has been proved to directly cause every disease associated with circadian disruption. The sleep academy notes that the chronic effects of year-round daylight saving time have been studied less extensively than the effects of seasonal clock changes, while maintaining that permanent standard time is better supported by current evidence.
Children and teenagers are a particular concern for sleep specialists because adolescents naturally tend to fall asleep and wake later as their circadian rhythms change during puberty. Delaying morning sunlight further during winter could make early school schedules more difficult, according to proponents of permanent standard time.
Public opinion also shows that Americans’ dissatisfaction with changing clocks does not necessarily translate into agreement over the solution.
An October 2025 AP-NORC survey found only 12% of adults favored the existing system of changing clocks twice each year, while 47% opposed it and 40% neither favored nor opposed it.
When respondents were required to choose between two permanent systems, however, 56% preferred year-round daylight saving time, with more evening light, while 42% preferred permanent standard time, which would preserve more morning light.
Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey was among lawmakers who backed ending the clock changes, calling the existing system “inconvenient and, frankly, disruptive.”
Supporters also point to commercial and recreational benefits of additional evening sunlight. Restaurants, retailers, golf courses and outdoor recreation businesses can gain extra usable daylight after work and school, while proponents contend that brighter evenings may encourage physical activity and reduce some forms of crime and traffic risk.
Opponents counter that those benefits must be weighed against darker mornings for students, workers and commuters, particularly in northern states and locations on the western edges of time zones.
Trump’s decision to publicize Cotton’s phone number added another element to what had already become an unusually personal legislative dispute. The president has used the tactic before. During his 2015 presidential campaign, Trump publicly gave out Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone number after the South Carolina Republican criticized him during an earlier political feud.
Despite their current clash, Trump and Cotton have generally aligned on many major Republican priorities. Their disagreement over daylight saving time underscores how the issue cuts across conventional party divisions, with lawmakers on both sides supporting and opposing permanent daylight saving time for regional, commercial, safety and health reasons.
The current legislation has already demonstrated that unusual coalition. The House’s 308 votes in favor came from both parties, while 22 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed it.
For now, Americans remain scheduled to turn their clocks back one hour on Nov. 1, returning to standard time for the winter.
Unless the Senate acts on the House bill and sends it to Trump for his signature, the familiar cycle will continue — even as Washington increasingly agrees on one part of the debate: changing the clocks twice a year has few enthusiastic defenders.
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