The US House voted Tuesday to pass a measure to enact year-round Daylight Saving Time across the country, springing Congress forward into an issue that has long stumped lawmakers and spurred impassioned pleas by parents, farmers and others with sharply divergent views.
It will now head to the Senate for approval before going to the president for his signature — though its chances in the upper chamber remain unclear.
I read somewhere that the Senate wants it to be Standard instead of DST, which I agree would wind up being better for most locations (not all). So they’ll probably fight over it and nothing will happen. We’ll see. At this point I just want to stop having to change the damn clocks.
I used to favor permanent DST because I’m not a morning person, but I realize most people aren’t night-owls like me, and by now there’s been a lot of evidence presented that it’s healthier to be in sync with sunlight and more important to get good sleep, especially for kids. Of course a lot of this also depends on which side of your time zone you live on.
Between the two positions, for a long time I favored permanent half-DST, which is setting clocks halfway between so the offset isn’t that bad for health and both sides of the standard vs DST debate could live with it. There was even a bill proposed to do that, but I recently read an article listing a few drawbacks to being on the half-hour compared to most other countries–mostly that it would be “confusing” which isn’t that strong of an argument IMO. I still think this would be a good solution if a bunch of other countries also did it. A few countries already are offset a half-hour from us and no one complains because they’re not major economic forces.
Why couldn’t they do permanent Standard Time? If history of permanent DST legislation prevails, this will be repealed within a year or two. Same as it will be in BC.
Saskatchewan is effectively on year-round daylight savings time and has been for decades, and they love it. History is not as clear-cut that it will get reversed.
Permanant DST was signed into law January 1974 and repealed October 1974. Everyone hated it, it went from 79% approval in December of 1973 to 46% in February of 1974.
Arizona loved it
One of very few things that administration has done right
It was tried. They made DST permanent in Jan. 1974. It was repealed in Oct. 1974. Fastest I’ve ever heard of Congress fixing some shit it was so unpopular.
Yes, they should have stuck with standard time instead of DST. OTOH, the thing everyone complained about was their kids having to walk to and from school in the dark. Now no one walks to school any more, so that doesn’t apply (yes believe it or not most kids used to walk or ride their bike to and from school back then, unless it was too far and they rode the bus).
But Standard Time is superior! I oppose this measure!
A distraction it may be, but I’ll take a win where I can get one. Idgaf which version of the clock we’re going with, I just want it to be consistent
Can we please go metric next? I’m old but an engineer (and a farmer) metric makes things so much easier…
The US has been officially on the metric system since the Carter administration
IDK why we just didn’t stick with it or at the least put both miles/km on the high way signs and slowly get people to acclimate to it…
This is good … but the same kind of good like the captain of the Titanic declaring that the kitchens must supply vegetarian meal options to those who request it.
Yes, a good thing, but really far off from the most urgent issues facing the country, isn’t it?
Agreed. It feels like a distraction from Team Pedo
Would love this
But the bill is just gonna die in the Senate, so don’t hold your breath
maybe in a twist of irony instead of the bill dying in the Senate, the Senate will die instead?
The mistake was calling it the sunshine protection act, that sounds too much like an environmental bill for them to pass it.
Look at congress DEI’ing the sun of all things.
In Brazil we made it always standard time (the one good thing bolsonaro did in his life) though I personally would prefer always daylight savings time
Honestly either way works. The switching is the annoying part.
Shame, one of the most endearing and quirky Americanisms. I was rather fond of it
Pretty dumb to call it an “Americanism” when all of Europe does it as well. There are twice as many people in Europe as there are in the US.
Is it not done elsewhere?
