Daylight-Saving Changes Are Dead in Congress — For Now

A faction of federal lawmakers — including now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio — has tried for ages to end the United States’ twice-a-year practice of changing clocks.

And after President Donald Trump urged Congress last year to permanently adopt daylight saving time, which starts early Sunday morning, the practice of springing forward and falling back appeared imperiled.

But momentum appears to have stalled. Even the bill’s sponsors are pretty sure clock changing is here to stay — for now.

“I don’t know if it’ll be this Congress,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, told NOTUS.

Scott has long sponsored a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent, providing more light in the evening. States already exempt from daylight saving time — Hawaii and most of Arizona — would be allowed to choose to stay on permanent standard time, which would mean more light in the morning, an approach favored by sleep experts.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who reintroduced the legislation in January 2025 with Scott, predicted the United States would permanently adopt daylight saving time “someday.” She noted that her Canadian neighbor to the north, British Columbia, will be changing its clocks for the final time this weekend, as it’s adopting permanent daylight saving time.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be doing it,” Murray added.

While Scott is bearish on passing the Sunshine Protection Act this year, he is confident “it’s gonna pass” in the future, citing strong public support and state legislatures passing bills to adopt permanent daylight saving time.

Most Americans hate changing their clocks twice a year. Only 12% of the nearly 1,300 U.S. adults surveyed by the AP-NORC last October favored the current system, while 47% opposed the status quo and 40% were neutral.

Over the past seven years, 19 states, including Florida and Washington, have passed bills that would make daylight saving time permanent — if federal law allowed the change, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. So far in 2026, 23 bills related to daylight saving or permanent standard time have been introduced across 16 states.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican who sponsors the House version of the bill, said in a statement to NOTUS that ending the clock change has been “a priority of mine for years.”

“The Sunshine Protection Act is a commonsense solution that would provide more consistency for families, improve public safety and encourage healthier, more active lifestyles,” Buchanan told NOTUS. “Florida led the way in calling for permanent daylight saving time, and there is growing bipartisan momentum across the country to finally lock the clock.”

At the federal level, there are powerful business forces on opposing sides pressing the clock-change issue, according to lobbying records.

On one side, lobbyists representing farmers and insurers have advocated adopting year-round daylight saving time. Changing the clocks twice a year disrupts the circadian rhythm, affecting farmers’ animals and coinciding with a spike in car accidents and heart attacks that hit insurers, they argue.

Bailey Fisher, director of government affairs at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, told NOTUS that for farmers, “It’s a livestock issue.” Dairy cows follow their circadian rhythm for milk production, for example, which can be disrupted and reduced when clocks change.

“Dairy cows, they’re creatures of habit, and a sudden one-hour shift in milking time can really cause a disruption to their production cycle,” Fisher told NOTUS.

An extra hour of sunlight in the evening is also “so valuable” for farmers, Fisher added.

“Being able to finish in some more daylight rather than always just having to work with the tractor light on in the nighttime, it really is beneficial to have that some extra time,” Fisher said.

On the other side, airlines and broadcasters are pushing back on efforts to end the clock change. Doing so would be costly and disruptive to their operations, they say.

Airlines for America, the trade association that represents domestic carriers, said changing the current system would have “considerable implications” for the industry, “including passenger disruption, crew and aircraft positioning, and domestic and international connectivity issues.”

“Airlines operate expansive interconnected domestic and global networks that are reliant on stability and predictability,” Airlines for America said in a statement to NOTUS. “Abrupt adjustments to [daylight saving time] will cause widespread disruption to both passenger and all-cargo airline schedules to the detriment of consumers and to the connectivity that fuels commerce and tourism.”