The House voted 308-117 to make daylight saving time (DST) permanent, sending the bill to the Senate.
In case you weren’t aware, America already tried this. In December 1973, 79% of Americans supported permanent daylight saving time, and Nixon signed it into law. By February 1974 — eight weeks in — support had collapsed to 42%. The policy didn’t change. Winter did.
Sunrise in Washington, D.C. came at 8:27am. Kids left for school in the dark, some carrying flashlights, some wearing reflective tape. In Florida, eight children were killed in traffic accidents in the first weeks of the new schedule. Congress cited those deaths when it moved to repeal.
The energy case fell apart too. The whole point had been the oil embargo, but the Department of Transportation found the fuel savings too small to matter. Ten months after Nixon signed it, Congress repealed the law, and Ford put the country back on standard time.
There’s a mechanism behind why this keeps coming back. Permanent DST only ever gets voted on when the sun is up. Polls run in the abstract; votes happen in warm months; and the benefit — a free hour of evening light — is easy to picture year-round. The cost is concentrated in about ten weeks of dark winter mornings, and it doesn’t become real until the law does. So the policy polls beautifully right up until January.
This latest vote happened in July. The 1974 law passed in December, right before the winter that killed it. If this one clears the Senate, the first real test lands in January 2027, when sunrise in Indianapolis comes after 9am!
Sleep researchers have watched this loop for fifty years — which is why the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the AMA, and the National Sleep Foundation all back the opposite fix: permanent standard time.
Congress just picked the one version of clock reform America has already tried, hated, and repealed.
BREAKING: The House has passed legislation to make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationwide, ending the twice-a-year clock changes by a 308-117 vote. Backed by President Trump, the bill now heads to the Senate. If approved and signed into law, Americans would no longer have to… pic.twitter.com/6iy9O9ZWYf
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 14, 2026