Daylight saving time 2024: Will Sunshine Protection Act make DST permanent?
What is history behind Daylight Saving Time?
Here we go again! We're losing an hour of sleep this coming weekend due to Daylight Saving Time. This is something Florida senators have been trying to ditch for good for several years, but as of right now, you still need to reset those clocks early Sunday morning.
Sunday morning, at 2 a.m., marks the beginning of daylight saving time when most across the U.S. set their clocks forward by one hour, throwing everyone off schedule temporarily until we all readjust.
Federal law allows individual states not to observe daylight saving time, but states cannot make it permanent.
Over the past few years, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has made several attempts to make daylight saving time the year-round standard through the Sunshine Protection Act.
The Sunshine Protection Act was first introduced in January 2021 to make daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time. Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam, the Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, follow year-round standard time and would not be affected by the law.
To become law, the bill needs a majority vote in the House and Senate before it can be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature. However, in 2021 and 2023, both attempts to send the bill to the president failed to get a vote in the House.
There have also been attempts to make standard time permanent.
The Coalition for Permanent Standard Time based in Arizona, which is on permanent standard time, advocates for the U.S. to end clock changes.
Daylight saving time, or DST, allows for an extra hour of light in the evening during the warmer months.
What's the status of the Sunshine Protection Act
In March 2023, Rubio reintroduced the bill in the Senate, and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) introduced the companion legislation in the House.
"This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid. Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support. This Congress, I hope that we can finally get this done," Rubio said in 2023.
While the bill has earned a few more cosponsors in the Senate since last March, it hasn’t made it out of the House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce.
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, joined as cosponsors of the bill in November.
This year, the Sunshine Protection Act has yet to be reintroduced in the Senate or the House. For now, the clocks will spring forward at 2 a.m. on March 10.