Senate Unanimously Approves Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent

The Senate on Tuesday approved a proposal to make Daylight Saving Time Permanent. 

If the proposal, dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, passes the House and receives Biden’s signature, Americans would never again have to re-set their clocks - or “fall back” - an hour in the fall.

The proposal would not take effect until November 20, 2023 to give airlines and other transportation industries more time to adjust to the change, The Hill reports. 

Sen. Marco Rubio, the lead sponsor of the proposal, touted the proposal’s benefits. 

“There’s strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock switching has, there’s an increase in heart attacks, car accidents and pedestrian accidents,” he said on the Senate floor. 

“The benefits of Daylight Savings Time has been accounted for in research: Reduced crime as there is light later in the day, decrease in seasonal depression that many feel during standard time and the practical one,”  he added. 

“In a country we desperately want our kids outside, playing, doing sports, not just to sit in front of a TV playing video games all day. It gets tough in many parts of the country to be able to do that. What ends up happening is for the 16 weeks of the year, if you don’t have a park or outdoor facility with lights, you’re basically shut down at 5 p.m., in some cases 4 p.m.,”  he said. 

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the lead Democratic sponsor, also celebrated its passage. 

“It does darken our lives in a very literal sense by the time you get from November when we fall back to the shortest day of the year in December, the 21st I think it is, we have sunset in Rhode Island at 4:15,” he said. “That means everybody is driving home if they work regular nine-to-five hours they’re driving home in the pitch dark.”