Was that our final “Fall Back?” Will this be our last “Spring Forward?” I’m telling you there’s a chance!
Everywhere I go recently, I’ve been getting hounded by the same question, “When do we stop changing our clocks? I thought you passed a law to eliminate it.”
Americans, and particularly Georgians, are sick & tired of Time Change & want to Lock The Clock forever!
A CBS News poll in March 2022 found that 46% of U.S. residents preferred daylight saving time all year round, 33% preferred standard time year-round and 21% were okay continuing to clock switch twice a year.
In a YouGovAmerica poll taken also in March, 59% said they wanted to go to Daylight Saving Time year round. 19% prefer the current system of Time Change. 22% were unsure.
My own informal polling on social media yields even stronger results. 90% want to eliminate Time Change. Of those, two thirds prefer permanent daylight saving time.
Here’s where we stand on the issue.
We are currently waiting on The House of Representatives in DC.
On March 15, 2022, the US Senate passed, by unanimous consent, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021. If passed by the House & signed by the president, the bill would move us to permanent Daylight Saving Time beginning in November 2023. It would allow those states that had previously chosen to move to year-round daylight saving time, either through legislation or voter approval, to make that change. However, because the bill also repeals the section of federal law that changes standard time to daylight time from March to November, states would be forced to choose to operate either on standard or daylight year-round. States that currently remain on standard time year-round would be allowed to continue. The bill’s fate in the House is uncertain though matching legislation has been introduced & the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on the issue in early March.
Our only hope this year is that the House would take this up during the lame duck session which is going on right now until mid-December. Otherwise, the process has to start all over again next year.
Almost all 50 states have considered legislation over the last several years that would place the state permanently on either standard time or daylight saving time. Since 2015, at least 450 bills and resolutions have been introduced in virtually every state, but none of significance passed until 2018, when Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe DST, pending amendment of federal law to permit such action.
My bill, which is similar to the one passed in Florida, passed in Georgia in 2021.
In the last five years, 19 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change, and in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation. Because federal law does not currently allow full-time DST, Congress would have to act before states could adopt changes.
Arizona & Hawaii are the only states which observe year-round standard time currently.
In Summary:
- We passed the bill in Georgia in 2021 to move to year round Daylight Saving Time should the Congress allow it.
- The Senate passed Senator Marco Rubio’s bipartisan “Sunshine Protection Act” in March of this year. There is identical bipartisan legislation in the House.
- We need the House to pass this bill during the lame duck session which is going on right now until mid-December. If the bill fails to pass the House, the process will have to start all over again in the next Congress.
What can you do?
The fate of The Sunshine Protection Act lies primarily in the hands of 3 people:
Congressman Frank Pallone who is the Chair of The Energy and Commerce Committee (this is the committee which would hear the bill) (202) 225-4671
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (202) 225-4131
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965
If you would like to see the end of Time Change, we need to barrage these 3 people with our desire for this change. Call their office & send them an email. Tell them that you want to see Time Change come to an end & urge them to allow a vote on the “Sunshine Protection Act.”
You can find contact information for these Representatives & all the others at: https://www.house.gov/representatives
If the bill passed the House, it would require the signature of President Biden to become law.
So in the words of the great prognosticator Lloyd in the movie “Dumb & Dumber,” I’m telling you there’s a chance.
