Permanent DST: Senate moves bill forward to end ‘rollback’ forever, no time changes in 2022

WASHINGTON — Now that Americans have set their clocks to “go forward” one hour, some lawmakers are hoping the country will never have to go back to standard time again.

The Senate on Tuesday voted unanimously to pass the Sun Protection Act in an effort to make DST permanent across the United States

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and fellow Republican from Florida, Sen. Rick Scott, along with bipartisan colleagues from Oklahoma, Missouri, Rhode Island, Oregon, Mississippi and Massachusetts, reintroduced the bill after its repeated failure to make it to the president’s office.

The bill now goes to the House.

“If the House follows the Senate’s lead, we can really make this happen. No more clock changes. No more dark winter afternoons. No more losing an hour of sleep every spring. [President Joe Biden’s] office,” tweeted Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA.

If the measure is not enacted in time, daylight saving time will end on Sunday, November 7.

A bill allowing Florida to stay on daylight saving time year-round was signed into law in 2018, but for Florida’s change to apply, federal law must be changed, Rubio said.

“Fifteen other states – Arkansas, Alabama, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – have passed similar laws, resolutions or election initiatives, and dozens more are looking,” Rubio said in a statement.

Rubio’s statement said the change could bring improvements including a reduction in seasonal depression, a reduction in car accidents by better aligning daylight hours with travel times, a reduction in theft by adding more daylight hours and a reduction in childhood obesity by adding more time for physical fitness.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a law stipulating that daylight saving time begins on the last Sunday in April and ends on the last Sunday in October each year, according to NASA.

The law was changed in 1986 and DST officially started on the first Sunday in April, but the end date remained the same.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed an energy policy bill that would extend daylight saving time by four weeks, beginning the second Sunday in March, according to NASA. This law entered into force in 2007.

A poll last October shows most Americans want to avoid switching between daylight saving time and standard time, though there’s no consensus on which should be used all day. ‘year.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that only 25% of Americans said they preferred switching between standard time and daylight saving time.

Forty-three percent of Americans said they would like to see standard time used year-round. Thirty-two percent say they would prefer daylight saving time to be used year-round.

No time changes are observed in Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.