Trump Blinks on Ending Daylight Saving Time

The Washington Post

15:49 JST, March 9, 2025

Donald Trump entered the White House having promised to revoke Biden administration policies, to pull the nation out of international alliances and conflicts … and to finally end the practice of “springing forward” and “falling back.”

“Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” the president-elect wrote on social media in December, vowing that Republicans would use their “best efforts” to eliminate the century-old practice of moving the clocks forward one hour every spring and back in the fall.

But locking the clock has proved more politically difficult than rolling back some of Joe Biden’s policies. Polls have shown that most Americans oppose the time shifts but disagree on what should replace them.

“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,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “And it’s very much, it’s a little bit one way, but it’s very much a 50-50 issue.”

The president’s concession, offered as most Americans prepare to “spring forward” by advancing their clocks on Sunday, came after several years of political battles to shape the hours when Americans wake, work and sleep. The time shifts are intended to maximize Americans’ exposure to sunlight during working hours, but they have long been derided for causing groggy mornings, missed appointments and even public health problems.

Political leaders also say they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists who say it aligns with our circadian rhythms. That decision would rest with Congress, not the president.

The split often reflects regional, not political, differences, based on where time zones fall; a year-round “spring forward” would mean winter sunrises that could creep past 9 a.m. in cities such as Indianapolis and Detroit, prompting many local lawmakers to oppose the idea.

The long-sleepy political debate became a national story in 2022, after advocates for year-round daylight saving time won a surprise victory when the Senate unanimously approved their legislation in a voice vote; some senators who missed the vote later said they did not realize it was happening. That awoke a new lobbying effort from advocates such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which warned that year-round daylight saving time would be unhealthy, citing risks such as higher rates of obesity or metabolic dysfunction. Some researchers warned of a condition dubbed “social jetlag,” saying that internal body clocks and rhythms would be persistently misaligned if human clocks were permanently set forward an hour.

The concerted resistance from the health groups – which some congressional aides jokingly referred to as “Big Sleep” – helped kill the measure in the House and has contributed to a stalemate over how to proceed.

“We always knew the strategy had to start with the Hill,” said Amy Kelbick, a McDermott+ consultant who lobbied for AASM until this year. In an interview, she described efforts to bring doctors to Washington and warn against the Sunshine Protection Act, the legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent.

The political freeze was compounded because Biden studiously avoided weighing in on the issue, with his White House declining to comment to The Washington Post across nearly three years of questions. Biden’s reticence may have been influenced by his experience: He was a freshman senator in 1973 who voted for Congress’s effort to permanently adopt daylight saving time. The decision almost immediately backfired. Lawmakers were deluged with nationwide complaints, with parents worried about children waiting in the dark for school buses to arrive; some Americans blamed the new policy for causing traffic accidents on dark winter mornings. Congress rolled back the change after 10 months, with little dissent; the Senate enacted the change in a voice vote.

Today, roughly two-thirds of Americans want to end the clock changes, polls show. But even those Americans don’t agree on what should come next. An October 2023 YouGov poll found that 33 percent of respondents wanted year-round daylight saving time, 23 percent wanted permanent standard time, and 9 percent had no preference. The remainder weren’t sure or preferred to remain on the current system.

Most Americans now live with daylight saving time for 238 days a year – nearly eight months. (Two states, Hawaii and most of Arizona, have opted out of the semiannual time changes and remain on permanent standard time, which states are allowed to do.)

But states cannot adopt permanent daylight saving time unless Congress passes a bill that allows them to do so.

The debate was revived in November when Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy publicly mused about doing away with clock changes to boost efficiency as part of their fledgling U.S. DOGE Service. Trump echoed the idea about two weeks later.

Advocates on both sides of the daylight saving divide saw inspiration in Trump’s open-ended statement last year, which criticized daylight saving time but didn’t specify how to proceed.

“President Trump has been clear that he supports an end to our twice-annual clock changes, and I greatly appreciate his support,” Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Florida), the lead author of the House’s Sunshine Protection Act, said in a statement. “There are tremendous health, economic and productivity benefits to making daylight saving time permanent.”

“The evidence is straightforward,” countered Karin Johnson, a neurologist who sits on AASM’s advocacy committee and serves as co-chair of the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time. “Year-round standard time aligns best with human circadian biology and is the superior option for overall health.”

Johnson also appealed to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement backed by Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, as well as DOGE’s self-proclaimed goal for improving government efficiency.

“We believe permanent standard time aligns with DOGE and HHS mandates for the most efficient and natural way to improve health, safety, and productivity by using the natural power of the sun,” Johnson said in a statement, adding an appeal to the president. “Given the Administration’s commitment to reduce chronic disease and promote natural health through the Make America Healthy Again Commission, he should support permanent standard time.”

The political fight is far from over, with Trump allies such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) pledging to keep pushing for year-round daylight saving time. Some congressional Republicans also have privately called for a hearing in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with hopes of advancing the Sunshine Protection Act.

Trump in his first administration also signaled he supported year-round daylight saving time, writing on social media in 2019 that the idea “is O.K. with me!”

But this White House has not picked a clear side, and an official referred questions back to Trump’s public comments this week, where the president himself seemed bemused by the politics of sunshine.

“This should be the easiest one of all,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, before conceding that the nation is split. “If something is a 50-50 issue, it’s hard to get excited about it.”