The House voted Tuesday to advance the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill that would put the United States on daylight saving time all year, according to CBS News. The vote was 308 to 117.
The practical change is blunt: clocks would stay one hour ahead permanently instead of shifting twice a year. For people who have built their lives around the familiar spring-forward, fall-back ritual, Congress is again trying to delete the second half of that routine.
The bill’s supporters are framing the clock switch as needless overhead. President Donald Trump backed the measure in a May post on Truth Social, writing that it would save the “hundreds of millions of dollars” spent by people, cities and states that have to change clocks.
Trump also wrote that people should be able to stop worrying about the clock changes and the work and money involved in the twice-yearly process. That is a political claim, and the cost figure was presented by Trump, not independently established in the House vote reported by CBS News.
The House action does not mean Americans can throw out every microwave manual just yet. The measure has advanced, according to CBS News, putting the country one step closer to year-round daylight saving time. The reported vote shows broad support in the chamber, but the information available does not establish that the change has become law.
If enacted, the policy would not create more daylight. It would move the clock label attached to daylight by keeping the country on the later schedule throughout the year. That means the same sun, the same rotation of the Earth, and one fewer federally sanctioned argument with the clock on the wall.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
