Daylight Savings Bill: What It Does, Senate Vote, and Status

The daylight savings bill most people are asking about is the Sunshine Protection Act, a federal proposal to end the twice-yearly clock change by making Daylight Saving Time permanent across the country. It has been introduced in Congress repeatedly, passed the Senate once in 2022, and has never become law. The current versions, H.R. 139 and S. 29, were introduced in January 2025 and remain in committee with no scheduled vote.¹²

What the Bill Would Actually Change

The Sunshine Protection Act would amend the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to make Daylight Saving Time the year-round standard. Clocks would no longer spring forward in March or fall back in November. Evenings would keep an extra hour of daylight through the winter, and mornings would grow correspondingly darker.

States that already opt out of DST would keep that right. Arizona and Hawaii, along with American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, would continue on permanent Standard Time if they chose to.³

Where the Bill Stands in Congress

Both chambers of the 119th Congress have a version of the bill, and both are sitting in committee. The House version is H.R. 139. The Senate version is S. 29. Neither has advanced, and there is no public indication that a floor vote is coming.¹

The bill’s history helps explain the inertia. It has been reintroduced session after session under the same name, and each time it has failed to clear both chambers before the Congress ended.

The 2022 Senate Vote and Why It Went Nowhere

The closest the country has come to ending clock changes was March 2022. The Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent, a procedure that requires no objection from any senator on the floor.⁴ The vote happened quickly enough that it reportedly caught House leadership off guard.

The bill then went to the House and was held at the desk. It never received a floor vote. The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee signaled that members were split three ways: some wanted permanent DST, some preferred permanent Standard Time, and some saw no reason to change the current system. Health and safety concerns about dark winter mornings also came up in committee. When the 117th Congress ended in January 2023, the bill expired.

Why States Can’t Fix This Themselves

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 puts the federal government in charge of the country’s time standards. Any state that observes DST has to follow the national schedule, which runs from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November.⁵ The Department of Transportation oversees the system.⁶

Under that law, a state has exactly one way to break from the schedule: it can pass a state law exempting itself from DST entirely, which locks it into permanent Standard Time. What the law does not allow is for a state to adopt permanent Daylight Saving Time on its own.⁶

That is why roughly 20 states have passed permanent-DST laws that do nothing. Each is a trigger law, waiting on Congress to change federal law before it can take effect.⁷ Several add a second condition, requiring neighboring states to switch at the same time. Delaware’s law, for example, will not activate unless Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania also move to permanent DST. The logic is practical: no state wants to sit an hour off from every jurisdiction around it.

The Health Fight Over Which Time to Keep

The disagreement that stalled the bill in the House in 2022 reflects a real scientific split, and it has not gone away. The Sunshine Protection Act would lock the country into permanent DST. Major medical organizations argue that permanent Standard Time is the healthier option.

The American Medical Association has taken a formal position supporting permanent Standard Time, pointing to research linking the spring-forward transition to increased cardiovascular events, mood disorders, and motor vehicle crashes.⁸ The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reached the same conclusion, arguing that Standard Time aligns best with human circadian biology and that DST creates a persistent mismatch between clock time and the body’s internal clock.⁹ Some studies cited by sleep researchers suggest the body never fully adjusts to DST, even months into the summer schedule.

Supporters of permanent DST make a different case: more evening daylight encourages outdoor activity, reduces certain types of crime, and helps retail. The counterargument is what winter mornings would look like. Under permanent DST, January sunrise in New York City would not happen until around 8:20 a.m. Minneapolis would see sunrises closer to 8:50 a.m. Seattle would push near 9:00 a.m. That matters for children waiting for school buses in the dark and for anyone commuting before dawn. The country tried year-round DST briefly in 1974 during the energy crisis and reversed course within a year, largely because of public backlash over dark winter mornings.

What You Can Expect for Now

Nothing about the current session suggests the twice-yearly clock change is ending soon. Lawmakers broadly agree that changing clocks is unpopular. They do not agree on which time to keep, and the medical establishment’s push for Standard Time cuts directly against the DST preference written into the federal bill and most state trigger laws.

Until that stalemate breaks, the clock change stays. The only path a state has under current law is the one Arizona and Hawaii already took: opt out of DST entirely and stay on Standard Time year-round.⁶

1
Congress.gov. H.R.139 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Sunshine Protection Act of 2025
2
Congress.gov. S.29 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Sunshine Protection Act of 2025
3
U.S. Department of Transportation. Daylight Saving Time
4
Congress.gov. S.623 – Sunshine Protection Act of 2021
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 260a – Advancement of Time or Changeover Dates
6
US Department of Transportation. Uniform Time
7
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse, Scott, Colleagues Reintroduce Bipartisan Legislation to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent
8
American Medical Association. AMA Calls for Permanent Standard Time
9
American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Permanent Standard Time Is the Optimal Choice for Health and Safety