spring forward no more

The Senate just voted to abolish Standard Time and make Daylight Saving Time permanent

The Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. If it passes through the House, Americans would no longer change their clocks twice a year.

The Sunshine Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) but co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, seeks to bring the entire country in line with states like Florida which have already voted to end Standard Time, which runs from November to March.

The senators sponsoring the bill explained a number of reasons to support it, including data that shows its negative health effects. Some studies have suggested permanent Daylight Saving Time could lead to fewer car accidents, lower rates of seasonal depression, and higher rates of physical activity, Rubio's press release outlined. It could potentially even boost economic activity and reduce energy usage, and would likely help employees like agricultural workers whose schedules are disrupted by time changes.

"Congress created Daylight Saving decades ago as a wartime effort," noted Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), arguing, "now it is well past time to lock the clock and end this experiment." 

"Americans' lifestyles are very different than they were when Daylight Saving Time began more than a century ago," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) concurred.

While not everybody agrees that Daylight Saving Time is preferable, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) was certainly excited to have all her colleagues on board with the change.

Read more about why many oppose changing the clocks here at The Week.