The House Rules Committee voted 6-4 on Monday to advance the Sunshine Protection Act to a full chamber vote, moving the Trump-backed bill one step closer to ending the twice-yearly clock change that most Americans endure every spring and fall. The legislation would let states lock their clocks on Daylight Saving Time year-round, with an option to opt out.
The vote marks the latest milestone for a measure that has built unusual bipartisan momentum. The House Energy and Commerce Committee overwhelmingly passed the bill 48-1 in May, with only Rep. Nanette Barragán, a California Democrat, voting against it. Now the bill heads to the House floor, a destination it never reached the last time Congress tried this.
President Trump has made the issue his own, framing permanent Daylight Saving Time as both a cost-saver and a political winner. After the committee advanced the measure, Trump wrote:
"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! We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day, And who can be against that, This is an easy one!"
He's not wrong about the popularity. An AP-NORC poll found that only 12 percent of Americans favor the current system of changing clocks, while 47 percent oppose it, the Washington Examiner reported. The question has never been whether Americans want change. The question has been whether Congress can actually deliver it.
The Sunshine Protection Act has a longer legislative history than its simple premise might suggest. The Senate unanimously passed a version in 2022, but the bill stalled and died in the House amid concerns about darker winter mornings. That failure came despite broad public support, a reminder that congressional inertia can outlast popular consensus for years.
This time, backers believe the combination of Trump's vocal support and lopsided committee votes gives the legislation enough force to break through. Rep. Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who authored the measure, has pushed the bill as a straightforward quality-of-life fix. As he put it in a May news release, Fox News reported:
"Floridians and Americans across the country are tired of the biannual time change, and the evidence is clear that permanent daylight saving time can improve public health, reduce traffic accidents, lower crime and encourage more outdoor activity."
Buchanan added: "Ending the clock change is a commonsense reform that will improve everyday life for millions of Americans."
Chairman Brett Guthrie, the Kentucky Republican who led the Rules Committee session, made a similar case in his opening statement. He cited benefits to sleep schedules, energy conservation, motor vehicle safety, and the economy, and argued the change would mean "more time for people to exercise outside, visit family, attend concerts and sporting events, attract customers to their retail businesses, and more."
Not everyone is on board. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat, proposed amending the bill with language from her own legislation, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act, which would make standard time, not Daylight Saving Time, permanent nationwide. The committee quickly rejected her amendment. Scanlon argued that permanent DST would pose health and safety risks and pointed to the 1974 experiment, when Congress tried year-round Daylight Saving Time and abandoned it after widespread public backlash.
Several unnamed medical organizations share that concern. They argue that permanent standard time would be healthier because it more closely aligns with the body's natural circadian rhythms. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has stated that "by artificially shifting the clock time an hour forward, daylight saving time causes a misalignment between clock time and solar time, interfering with our circadian timing," Just The News reported.
The medical argument deserves a hearing. But it has been making the rounds for years, and Congress keeps gravitating toward permanent DST rather than permanent standard time. The reason is simple: voters want longer evenings, not shorter ones. That preference may not satisfy sleep researchers, but it drives the politics.
More interesting is the criticism from the right. Rep. Keith Self, a Texas Republican and member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote Monday that "Republicans are majoring in the minors, fiddling with the clocks while the country burns." It's a fair point about legislative priorities, and one that resonates with conservatives who want Congress focused on spending, the border, and national security. The House has shown it can move on regulatory rollbacks when the will is there, the question is whether clock-change legislation distracts from that work or simply runs alongside it.
Even if the House passes the Sunshine Protection Act, the Senate remains the harder chamber. The bill needs 60 votes to clear the legislative filibuster, and Breitbart reported the measure already faces potential Senate opposition despite the unanimous 2022 vote on similar legislation.
Sen. Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican, has been blunt about his objections. "By moving the clock back an hour in winter, permanent Daylight Savings Time would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunshine that's essential for our safety and well-being," Cotton said. That kind of opposition from within the GOP caucus signals the bill's path through the upper chamber will be anything but smooth.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, on the other hand, has embraced the effort. "I look forward to FINALLY passing my Sunshine Protection Act out of the Senate and making this commonsense policy a reality for the American people," Scott said, as Newsmax reported.
The bill has 32 bipartisan House cosponsors and 18 Senate cosponsors. Roughly 20 states, including Alabama, South Carolina, Oregon, Maine, and Florida, have already passed legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent if Congress authorizes it. Hawaii and most of Arizona already sit outside the system entirely, observing standard time year-round.
Trump has previously urged Congress to make the change, and his post-committee statement carried the tone of a president who sees an easy bipartisan win sitting on the table. He's right that the twice-yearly clock change costs time, money, and disruption for hundreds of millions of people. Whether the savings and benefits are as large as proponents claim is debatable, but the annoyance is universal.
The broader context matters, too. Congressional Republicans have been working to advance Trump-backed priorities across multiple fronts, from birthright citizenship legislation to redistricting efforts following major court rulings. The Sunshine Protection Act is a lighter lift than any of those, but it's the kind of tangible, kitchen-table result that voters actually notice.
Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, captured the bipartisan sentiment when he said, "The real question is, why do we still change our clocks? It's getting harder and harder to justify."
He's asking the right question. The answer, for decades, has been congressional inaction. The House now has a chance to change that. Whether the Senate follows will tell us whether Washington can deliver even on the things almost everyone agrees on.
If Congress can't manage to stop fiddling with the clocks, it's fair to wonder what it can manage at all.