Did They Pass The Law To Stop Daylight Savings Time? Is Daylight Savings Time Becoming Permanent?

The Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent across the U.S. beginning in 2023.

The so-called Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 was approved by unanimous consent, but would still require House approval and President Biden’s signature to become law.

The will be no end to the annual clock shifting.

“We don’t have to keep doing this stupidity anymore. And why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long is beyond me,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the sponsors of the bill, said on the Senate floor.

“Hopefully, this is the year that this gets done. And pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come,” he added.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office tells NPR that there are no immediate plans to vote on daylight saving time, but they note the House Committee on Energy and Commerce had a hearing on it last week and there’s bipartisan support for it.

Daylight saving time began as a bid to pack more hours of sunlight into the day during the summer months and cut down on energy use, though critics question how effective it’s been toward that goal.

Instead, health experts say switching our clocks twice a year has led to an uptick in sleep deprivation and other health problems.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine supports a year-round national clock.

Daylight saving time currently makes up roughly eight months of the year, with the remainder counterintuitively called standard time.