Daylight saving bill passes House, but Senate future unclear
Published in Political News
A bipartisan bill to make daylight saving time year-round and permanent has passed the House of Representatives but faces a still-murky future in the Senate.
The so-called Daylight Protection Act, which would end the twice-a-year ritual of moving clocks forward and back, won overwhelming 308-117 approval with majorities from both parties supporting the measure.
It’s still unclear if or when the bill will come up in the Republican-controlled Senate, where at least 13 senators oppose it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said it’s unlikely to be shoehorned into the chamber’s crowded schedule anytime soon.
President Donald Trump backs the bill, which has wide support in his home state of Florida because it is thought to benefit tourism and outdoor recreation in winter.
Some critics, including many sleep scientists, favor an alternate bill that would make standard time permanent, meaning Americans would still have sunlight at the same times in the winter, would not move the clocks to daylight time in the summer, and the sun would rise and set an hour earlier from March to November.
States on the western edges of time zones and northern farming states with long and cold winters generally prefer standard time because many children would need to go to school in predawn darkness.
The pro-daylight saving bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Tampa Bay-area Republican. House Speaker Mike Johnson permitted the vote as part of an effort to convince her and other right-wing GOP hardliners to drop their blockade of virtually all legislative business. Johnson hopes to get the Senate to pass Trump’s SAVE America Act, which would enact new voting restrictions unpopular with Democrats but widely supported by the GOP.
A similar pro-daylight saving time bill passed the Senate in 2022 but failed to get a vote in the House.
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