Trump backs House-passed bill to make daylight savings time permanent

Administration Trump backs House-passed bill to make daylight savings time permanent Comments: by Max Rego - 08/04/26 10:32 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 08/04/26 10:32 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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President Trump on Tuesday reiterated his support for making permanent daylight saving time, roughly three weeks after the House passed a bill that proposes implementing the change.

“For many years, the vast Majority of Americans have asked to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, but no Administration has been able to get it done, until now,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Last month, the lower chamber voted 308-117 for the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would make daylight saving time the permanent standard time nationwide. Twenty-two Republicans and 95 Democrats voted against the measure, which retiring Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) introduced last year.

Trump on Tuesday urged Senate Republicans to back the legislation, saying the change “is an issue that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents can unite behind.”

The president added, “People are sick and tired of having to change their clocks twice a year. It is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly.”

Making daylight saving time permanent is not without precedent. In December 1973, former President Nixon signed a bill into law to make the switch amid a national energy crisis.

But while the change was supposed to last two years, Congress repealed the law in the fall of 1974. That came after eight children in Florida were involved in predawn car accidents, Time magazine reported in 2022.

Multiple GOP senators have voiced opposition to a change, with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) warning it would “push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said last month that senators from Western states will oppose the measure.

“I can see where Florida likes it for tee times at certain times of the year, but it doesn’t work so well for moms and dads putting kids on buses when the sunrise in Western Montana wouldn’t be ‘till 9:30 in the morning. It’s not going to work for us,” Daines told CNN.