{"id":507523,"date":"2026-03-06T16:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/507523\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:06:07","slug":"states-are-pursuing-an-end-to-twice-a-year-clock-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/507523\/","title":{"rendered":"States are pursuing an end to twice-a-year clock changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clocks will skip ahead an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday for daylight saving time in most of the U.S., creating a 23-hour day that throws off sleep schedules, plunges early-morning dog walks into darkness and inspires millions of complaints.<\/p>\n

Even though polls show most people dislike the system that has most Americans changing clocks twice a year, the political moves necessary to change the system haven\u2019t succeeded because opinions on the issue and its potential impacts are sharply divided.<\/p>\n

Want to make daylight saving time permanent? That would mean the sun rises around 9 a.m. in Detroit for a while during the winter. Prefer staying on standard time year round? That would mean the sun would be up at 4:11 a.m. in Seattle in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no law we can pass to move the sun to our will,\u201d said Jay Pea, the president of Save Standard Time, an organization devoted to switching to standard time for good.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: This weekend\u2019s US clock change is a problem, and there\u2019s a deep divide on how to fix it\n <\/p>\n

People love to hate changing clocks twice a year. We hear more from AP correspondent Lisa Dwyer. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the debate.<\/p>\n

Imposing a clock on a rotating planet causes a lot of headaches<\/p>\n

Genie Lauren spends her winters in New York City keeping an eye on the sunrise and sunset \u201cwhite-knuckling it\u201d until the sun is up late enough for her to feel like doing anything outside her apartment after work \u2014 even going to the movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of the year we\u2019re in daylight savings time,\u201d said the 41-year-old health care worker. \u201cWhat are we doing this for?\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. has tinkered with the clock intermittently since railroads standardized the time zones in 1883. So has a lot of the world. About 140 countries have had daylight saving time at some point; about half that many do now.<\/p>\n

About 1 in 10 U.S. adults favor the current system of changing the clocks, according to an AP-NORC poll<\/a> conducted last year. About half oppose that system, and some 4 in 10 didn\u2019t have an opinion. If they had to choose, most Americans say they would prefer to make daylight saving time permanent, rather than standard time.<\/p>\n

A dilemma for policymakers<\/p>\n

Since 2018, 19 states \u2014 including much of the South and a block of states in the northwestern U.S. \u2014 have adopted laws calling for a move to permanent daylight saving time.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a catch: Congress would need to pass a law to allow states to go to full-time daylight saving time, something that was in place nationwide during World War II and for an unpopular, brief stint in 1974.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Senate passed a bill in 2022 to move to permanent daylight saving time. A similar House bill hasn\u2019t been brought to a vote. <\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who introduces such a bill every term, said the airline industry, which doesn\u2019t want the scheduling complexity a change would bring, has been a factor in persuading lawmakers not to take it up.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, is proposing another approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not just split the baby?\u201d he asked. \u201cMove it 30 minutes so it would be halfway between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steube thinks his bill could get bipartisan support. The change would make the U.S. out of sync with most of the world \u2014 though India has taken a similar approach and in Nepal, the time is 15 minutes ahead of India.<\/p>\n

Sleep experts prefer more daylight in the morning<\/p>\n

Karin Johnson, the vice president of the advocacy group Save Standard Time and a professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, said permanent standard time \u2014 with the sun straight overhead close to noon \u2014 would help students, drivers and practically everyone else function better year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorning light is what\u2019s really critical for setting our circadian rhythms each day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Wright, a professor and director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado, said the risk of fatal vehicle crashes, heart attacks and strokes increases in the days that follow turning the clock forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the evidence for our health and well-being and safety, the best option for us as a country now is to choose to go to permanent standard time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Obstacles block change<\/p>\n

Of all U.S. states, only Arizona \u2014 except the Navajo Nation<\/a> \u2014 and Hawaii currently opt out of daylight saving time.<\/p>\n

In the last two years, half a dozen states have adopted bills to switch to permanent standard time in one legislative chamber, including Virginia in February. A Virginia House committee this week recommended dropping the issue until 2027.<\/p>\n

Most of those measures included caveats that the change would only take effect if neighboring states also made the move. For instance, Virginia would go to standard time only if Maryland and Washington, D.C., do, too. That could partially answer some of the concerns from groups including broadcasters who warn of schedule confusion. It wouldn\u2019t solve the concerns of the golf industry, which opposes full-time standard time because that would make it harder for people to get in a round in the evening.<\/p>\n

Many full-time daylight time bills have similar provisions.<\/p>\n

A call to make states decide<\/p>\n

Scott Yates, a Colorado man who runs the website Lock the Clock, wants the federal government to pass a law to end the twice-a-year clock change in two years.<\/p>\n

Under his plan, states would have to commit to either daylight saving or standard time.<\/p>\n

As long as the clock changes persist, Yates has some advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re the boss, tell all your employees on Monday that they can come in an hour later,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if you aren\u2019t the boss, tell your boss that you think you should come in an hour later on Monday. Sleep in for safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clocks will skip ahead an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday for daylight saving time in most of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[9604,5183,23,1017,3830,28,3829,3832,3506,3505,793,230645,11639,14893,5630,5629,2344,230647,230644,2077,149,8640,2001,8641,21486,2005,3,111,230646,795,21,19,11162,22,20,25,24,5148,2003,2002],"class_list":{"0":"post-507523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-al-state-wire","9":"tag-alabama","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-az-state-wire","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-co-state-wire","15":"tag-colorado","16":"tag-dc-wire","17":"tag-district-of-columbia","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-greg-steube","20":"tag-hawaii","21":"tag-hi-state-wire","22":"tag-il-state-wire","23":"tag-illinois","24":"tag-india","25":"tag-jay-pea","26":"tag-kenneth-wright","27":"tag-legislation","28":"tag-lifestyle","29":"tag-maryland","30":"tag-massachusetts","31":"tag-md-state-wire","32":"tag-mike-rogers","33":"tag-new-york","34":"tag-news","35":"tag-politics","36":"tag-scott-yates","37":"tag-u-s-news","38":"tag-united-states","39":"tag-united-states-of-america","40":"tag-united-states-senate","41":"tag-unitedstates","42":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","43":"tag-us","44":"tag-usa","45":"tag-virginia","46":"tag-wa-state-wire","47":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}