Efforts in Congress to make daylight saving time permanent sprang forward Tuesday after the House passed legislation that would remove the need for Americans to adjust their clocks twice a year.
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The measure, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, passed 308-117. It would put the country on the time currently observed from March to November unless a state exempted itself before the act took effect.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., who presided over the vote on the House floor, started playing the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” on his phone as he read the final tally.
President Donald Trump has publicly pushed Congress to pass the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. He wrote May 21 on Truth Social that he was “going to work very hard to see The Sunshine Protection Act signed into Law.”
“It’s time that people can stop worrying about the ‘Clock,’ not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production. It will also be a very nice WIN for the Republican Party. Take it!” Trump wrote.
The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration. Though the House overwhelmingly passed the bill, the Senate is not expected to quickly take it up and pass it as well.
A Senate version of the Sunshine Protection Act stalled last year after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., objected to fast-tracking the bill’s passage via unanimous consent in October.
Cotton said the change to permanent daylight saving time could lead to overlooked negative consequences, pointing to parts of the country where the sun wouldn’t rise until 9 a.m. or later and citing potentially dangerous, dark morning commutes and workers who would need to work early mornings without sun.
A senior Hill aide said Tuesday that Cotton has the “same concerns” he’s had about the proposal, and that several senators on both sides of the aisle have opposed the Senate version of the Sunshine Protection Act in committee. The aide said Cotton will ask Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., not to bring up the legislation for a vote.
Asked Wednesday about how he feels about the House bill, Thune told NBC News, “I just don’t think we want a mandate, and that was tried once before and repealed, but we’re looking at it.”
He added, “You know, the House had a big vote. There’s a lot of interest in it from members on our side over here. Some for, some against. But we’ll see.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said his constituents were eager for daylight saving to become permanent, but he was skeptical that the Senate would pass the bill.
“I’m kind of digging the fact that we’re going to fix it, I hope,” Burchett said. “See if the Senate takes it up. They probably won’t, but we’ll see.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said he favors the bill, and that there are mental health aspects to take into account.
“I think it’s popular. It shouldn’t be controversial. It should be bipartisan. It saves money,” McCormick said. He cited his background as an emergency room doctor in adding that “you get more depression, you get out of joint” with the time adjustments.
Changing the clock twice a year is unpopular among Americans, according to a 2025 AP-NORC poll, but opinions about how to change the system are divided. Congress has tried to tackle the issue before, and in 2022 the Senate voted to make daylight saving time permanent by unanimous consent — a measure that failed to advance in the House.
In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed into law a bill that would have made daylight saving time the norm for two years to conserve energy during the oil crisis, but the legislation was repealed after less than a year of having taken effect, as Americans disapproved of the dark early mornings.
Almost all states have considered legislation to stop the biannual time changes, and 19 states have enacted bills that would allow year-round daylight saving time if Congress were to do the same, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Daylight saving time was temporarily used as a wartime measure during World War I and World War II, but it wasn’t made official nationwide until the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The change made it so that clocks are advanced one hour in March and delayed one hour in November.
Arizona, Hawaii and various U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, don’t observe daylight saving time.
