It will soon be time, once again, for our clocks to “fall back”—Nov. 3 is the date we quit daylight saving time for 2024 and go back to standard time. But then we’ll most likely have to change the clocks again in spring. So what ever happened to those bills in Congress aiming to abolish the time changes?
We aren’t getting a nationwide ban on time changes (yet)
The Sunshine Protection Act was a federal bill that would make daylight saving time permanent. If enacted, it would have taken effect on Nov. 5, 2023, the date that we would otherwise have changed the clocks. The result would be that our winter mornings would stay dark an hour longer than they currently do, but we’d get an hour more daylight in winter evenings.
The bill passed the Senate in March of 2022, but it wasn’t taken up by the House of Representatives. To become law, it would have had to pass the House and then be signed by the president. At this point, that ship has sailed: The Hill reported that people generally like the idea of abolishing clock changes, but that there was no consensus in the House on whether daylight time or standard time should become permanent. Moreover, passing the bill just never seemed to be a high priority for lawmakers.
Meanwhile, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has taken the position that we should stay on standard time (that is, winter time) year-round, since screwing with our circadian rhythms twice a year has detrimental effects on our health and safety. If they got their way, we would fall back some year and then never spring forward again.
What about state legislatures?
States have their own ideas about what time it should be. Right now, two states currently operate on standard time year-round, Hawaii and Arizona (minus the Navajo nation). If the Sunshine Protection Act or a similar bill were to pass, making Daylight Saving Time permanent, those states would be allowed to keep their standard time if they wanted to.
Nineteen other states have passed laws or resolutions stating that they would switch to permanent daylight saving time if the federal government ever allows them to do so. Those states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, are Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. California voters have likewise authorized a law that isn’t yet officially on the books.
Until a federal law passes, though, those states are stuck with their current time zones. Current federal law, as passed in 1966, allows states to opt out of daylight saving time (as Hawaii and Arizona have) but does not offer a way for states to make daylight saving time permanent or to choose their own dates for changing the clocks. If you’re sick of time changes, you can always move to one of the territories that don’t observe daylight saving, which include the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.