Daylight saving time hearing held before Senate panel: 'We have been stuck with this since World War I'

A Senate committee heard from several experts on Thursday setting a year-round time standard instead of switching back and forth with daylight saving time. President Trump recently called it a "50/50 issue," but he previously vowed to get rid of daylight saving.

At the hearing, the committee's chairman, Sen. Ted Cruz, said there is a general consensus among his colleagues that the system of switching the clocks needs to be changed, but he said there is disagreement about whether to adopt universal standard time or daylight saving time.

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"I personally struggle with the two choices here, because it's a question of what do you care about more: sunshine and joy and fun and money, or health, mental health, physical health," said Cruz, a Republican from Texas. "And the honest answer for most people, gosh, I care about all that stuff."

Cruz said an alternative has been discussed to pick daylight saving time, but letting states opt out. Arizona and Hawaii currently opt out of changing the clock. But others said in Thursday's hearing that having different standards for different states could cause widespread confusion.

The Senate Commerce Committee hearing notice did not set a preference for daylight saving time or standard time but instead said it would focus on "various issues around whether the country should continue 'springing forward' and 'falling back' each year with time."

Daylight saving time begins in March, when clocks are moved forward an hour, and ends in October, when the clocks go back to standard time. 

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The twice-yearly time changes are generally unpopular among Americans, with 63% saying they would like to eliminate them completely, compared to just 16% who said they would not, according to an Economist/YouGov poll in November 2021. 

"People across our country are tired of the constant cycle of falling back and springing forward," Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware said, calling it time for a "thoughtful solution" across the country.

"The important thing is that we land of something consistent and make smart investments to keep people safe," she said. 

"Time is always complicated and the system we have is complicated, but it's complicated because it's a human creation," said Scott Yates, the founder of the Lock the Clock movement, which supports getting rid of twice-yearly time changes. 

"The sun moving around the earth doesn't actually have anything to do with time," Yates said. "We need this system, but this system has this bug right now, and the bug is daylight saving time, the switching of the clocks. And so if we have a little bit of time, a couple of years, so the individual states can address all of these complexities and make those decisions, then we will be able to get rid of this bug permanently. It is something we have been stuck with since World War I, and this is our opportunity to finally fix it." 

A 2020 commentary for the journal JAMA Neurology found evidence linking the annual transition to daylight saving time to increased strokes, heart attacks, and teen sleep deprivation.

In 2022, the Senate in 2022 passed a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent, but the bill never went anywhere in the House. The 2022 bill had 17 cosponsors from both parties and was spearheaded by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now the Secretary of State in the Trump administration.

It's unclear where President Trump stands on the issue. Mr. Trump said in March that it's a "50/50 issue," saying, "it's hard to get excited about it. I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don't want to take their kids to school in the dark."

But back in December, he posted on social media: "Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation." In the same post, he said the "Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't!" 

Mr. Trump in the past had supported making daylight saving time permanent — that is, keeping clocks shifted one hour ahead, which happens in the spring. His December comment called for daylight saving time to be eliminated. 

In addition to Yates, testifying Thursday was Jay Karen, chief executive officer of the National Golf Course Owners Association; Karin Johnson, practicing physician and professor of neurology at UMass Chan School of Medicine Baystate, on behalf of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine; and David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

More Daylight Saving Time Stories:

1. Health Impacts Daylight Saving Time Has On The Body
2. How To Prepare Your Body And Mind For The End Of Daylight Saving Time
3. Trump Wants To Turn The Clock On Daylight Saving Time