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Trump backs permanent Daylight Saving Time in the US, but the Sunshine Protection Act still needs Senate approval after passing the House 308 to 117.
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Senator Tom Cotton says year-round DST would leave winter sunrises unacceptably late, especially for children heading to school in the dark.
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Permanent DST would move sunrise and sunset 1 hour later, giving more afternoon light and darker mornings.
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Trump Wants Clock Changes Gone
Few things split Americans like the semiannual clock change, and the debate is far from settled.
President Donald Trump has taken a clear stand for ending seasonal clock changes and making DST permanent in the US.
Lately, the idea has gained support from many across the political spectrum. In July 2026, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent if enacted. The Sunshine Protection Act received bipartisan support , passing by 308 votes to 117.
Accused Senator of Blocking Bill
At the same time, some politicians argue against the initiative. One prominent example is Senator Tom Cotton.
Saturday, October 3, President Trump posted what he said was Senator Tom Cotton’s cellphone number on Truth Social, urging Arkansans to call him over the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas and a longtime Trump ally, is the lawmaker Trump blames for holding up the bill in the Senate.
Cotton stood firm, arguing that Congress had repealed permanent DST before because of dark winter mornings and that Arkansans don’t want kids going to school in the dark.
No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter. Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas
X (Twitter)Trump fired back that Cotton was blocking it out of “ego.”
If the Sunshine Protection Act is enacted, most of the United States would cease to change its clocks twice a year and would observe Daylight Saving Time year-round. Areas that currently do not observe DST would not be required to adopt it.
Historically, an Unpopular Solution in the US
mungfali.galihkartiwa07.workers.dev has previously talked to Dr. David Prerau, an internationally recognized expert on DST.
“The current system is the best of both worlds,” says DST expert Dr. David Prerau.
He is skeptical of the idea of permanent DST.
“Year-round DST is actually not a new idea,” Dr. Prerau explains.
“It was in use in the US in 1974. There was an energy crisis, and one thing proposed to help it was to extend DST from the then-standard six months per year to instead have permanent DST for two years. When it actually happened, a lot of people found all the negatives and didn’t like it at all,” he says.
“They didn’t like getting up in the winter in the dark, going to work in the dark, and especially sending their kids to school in the dark. The sunrises in the winter got very late, around 08:30 or 09:00 am, in places like Minneapolis and Seattle. It became unpopular very quickly, and Congress repealed it after the first year.”
Keeping Daylight Saving Time all year would move sunrise and sunset times 1 hour later in the day, resulting in darker mornings and more daylight in the afternoon.
In my experience, during winter, people want daylight after waking up in the morning rather than later in the day.
Dr. David Prerau, DST expert
Light has been proven to powerfully influence our body clock and the day-night cycle, known as the circadian rhythm.
The Case for Permanent Standard Time
Because recent permanent DST bills have stalled in the US Congress, there have been more recent efforts to focus on a move to permanent standard time instead. Unlike permanent DST, permanent standard time is already an option for individual states under federal law: a state, however, may exempt itself from DST by state law.
We turned to Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, a nonprofit lobby group, to hear more about this option:
“Permanent Standard Time eliminates both the acute harm of clock change and the chronic harm of DST itself. If individuals continue to prefer DST, they can simply wake themselves earlier to allocate more daylight after their workdays.”
Pea claims that standard time (also known as normal time or winter time) is an approximation of solar time.
“Solar time is the most honest clock, defined by the Sun’s apparent position in the sky, wherein ‘high noon’ corresponds to 12 pm,” he says.
In our opinion, history, science, and common sense point to permanent Standard Time as the healthiest, fairest, safest, and most lasting solution.
Jay Pea, Save Standard Time
DST in the US
Whatever the outcome of the debate, clocks will be set back 1 hour from 02:00 (2 am) to 01:00 (1 am), local time, on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
US clock change in detailFrequently Asked DST Questions
What is DST?
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of setting the clocks forward during part of the year to make better use of natural daylight. Changing the clocks does not create extra daylight, but it shifts civil time in relation to solar time. In other words, sunrise and sunset happen an hour later, on the clock, when DST is in effect.
Is Summer Time the same as DST?
Saying “summer time” instead of Daylight Saving Time (DST) is common in many countries, like the United Kingdom. The term winter time is sometimes used instead of standard time, which is the official name for the period without DST.
Is DST bad for your health?
Daylight Saving Time (DST) can mess with our body clock and can trigger underlying health issues. This time change can cause disruptions to our body clock, otherwise known as the circadian rhythm.