House passes bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
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.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/house-vote-daylight-savings-timeOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
139 replies
Artificially suppressed gas prices despite soaring oil costs, extreme US-caused turmoil in Iran, and now making daylight savings time permanent?
If we see Donald Trump give that big speech on Thursday in a sweater I will think we fell into the time vortex
He’s not cool enough to put solar panels on the White House or give up his family business.
Or have a cool brother who makes beer.
Can we please go metric next? I'm old but an engineer (and a farmer) metric makes things so much easier...
It would be nice. I would love to not have to keep two sets of each tool type just because America can't admit Europe did something better. And not just a little better, like, it's embarrassing how difficult SAE is over metric.
It's probably too late for me. But I dream of a world where my grandchildren only need one socket wrench set.
If you do enough stuff yourself you already have two sets of tools. And torx bits. And triple squares. And reverse Torx and triple square. And robertsons. And Allen bits.
And extended versions of all of those. And short versions. And impact versions and the good ones and the garbage ones and sometimes extractor versions if you had a real bad day and went to Harbor Freight three times.
But never a ten mill when you need one.
Australian here.
It's been a long time since I encountered a nut or bolt that was unambiguously imperial, but my 13mm socket probably gets more use than it should 😏
Oh, you'll still have to do that. Maybe your grandchildren can do away with the SAE tools ... as long as they don't work on old stuff very much.
But for all of us alive today, it won't change much. Those SAE fasteners are still out there in use all over the place, and they're not going to magically go away or convert to metric sizes. Even modern production lines producing things after the official change will still probably keep using SAE sizes for a while -- converting the production line to metric sizes would require expensive retooling and would bring in zero profit to recoup those costs. Eventually things would switch over to metric sizes, but brand new fasteners in SAE sizes will probably continue in production for at least a decade or two after the switch ... and the machines those fasteners are used in may continue in use for a long time even after new production is finally transitioned.
My guess is even if the US fully committed to the metric system today, it would still be ~50 years before someone like an auto mechanic could reasonably expect to work without ever needing SAE tools.
I doubt I will see the change either. I will say if you look around you can get dual use measuring devises. I got a great tape measure that is SAE and Metric. And digital calipers are already set up for it.
Tool wise it sucks having to have 2 sets... Especially having to have a metric and SAE adjustable wrenches (spanners for you over the pond).
The worst is getting out in the field with your 5lb hammer only to find you only brought metric stakes, so you gotta go all the way back and get your 3kg hammer.
Oh its the absolute worst! Or another pain, I have a cable 2 meters short and I left the cable stretcher at the shop!!! What do you do?
If you remembered your junction box pullers you can just scootch 'em a little closer. Just make sure you have a metric puller otherwise it'll only pull 'em 2 yards and still be a little short.
Otherwise you gotta send the kid back to the shop to look for it.
My cables were RF so we didn't use junction boxes so that tool was out unfortunately. Boy I wish we could have used it though!
Another hurdle was getting the signal up/down from the antenna(s). It never failed we didnt have enough frequency grease to get the job done. Many of junior helpers I sent out looking for that. Very kind of the other departments to help them on their adventure finding it. FacOps guys were the most helpful. And we help their apprentices find that Junction Box Puller, Cable Stretcher, etc.
Shit we had one kid nearly in tears looking for FG...
I just have two measuring tapes. With the dual tapes the markings are on the least convenient side of the tape half the time.
I do rough measurements in SAE so I know what to get at the lumber store, then do the actual cutting measured in metric. Those measurements happen at different times at different accuracy, and do not benefit from being on the same tape measure.
... Adjustable wrenches, you say?
Yes
It's out grandchildren that won't need two sets of wrenches. Maybe.
I'm hoping the US is just skipping metric and waiting for a far superior dozenal system. If base 10 is so great why can't it be divided by 3?
Yes! Dozenal FTW
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...
Feds aren't involved in highway signs afaik. As for why no states do that, I dont know.
I think they might be as the highway system get funding from the Federal government. That why they have rules like there is so many straight aways to be used as runways, the highway beautification act that removed all the billboards, etc.
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
I don't care which one they lock in, as long as they just fucking pick one and stick to it. It's the changing that's the problem - we all have electric lights ffs.
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
Climate change is one of the biggest existential threats to most species on earth, so no
I guess daylight savings time might have a slight effect on greenhouse gas emissions ... but it's got to be quite small. This doesn't look like 'serious action on climate change' to me.
Maybe, in that case, it's more like the captain of the Titanic putting up a sticky note on the bridge that says 'watch out for icebergs' ... after they've already struck one.
Woosh.
Vegetarian meals is the easiest way massively decrease your carbon footprint
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?
I mean, two down?
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.
Maybe, but originally it was the Senate who passed it sixish years ago and it died in the House.
On the other hand, who’s lobbying against this, on either side? Seems like the kind of thing that could actually pass, since there isn’t a partisan fight over it, at least as far as I can tell
I’m super into this. I’ve been dying for permanent DST for a long time and I really thought they were going to push Standard Time instead.
Permanent DST is more popular as most are evening people
Yeah but I like my evenings dark. Do you know how hard it is to get a 6 year old kid to agree that it’s bedtime when the sun’s still up? They’re not stupid, dad!
Poor you! We need to structure the world to benefit the parents of young children!
How dare someone have an opinion on a topic informed by how it will personally impact them.
They should just pick a stance based on vibes alone or just do what you want. That would be easier
It personally impacts me bro. I have teenage kids they're grumpy with not enough sleep. We should make daylight savings 2 hours.
And that would have been a very valid point to raise. It's a good point even, but just a blanket statement of judgement because someone has an opinion informed by their circumstances is unproductive
Exactly, the significant majority of people hate the sun going down extra early in winter. The winter is so depressing with so much darkness, we especially need to maximize how much sunlight see in winter
Honestly having darkness until 8 or 9 in the morning would be great for sleeping in during Christmas break.
They'll fuck it up and pick the wrong time, and it will be dark at 4:30 PM for the rest of our lives.
In 50 years, they'll try to switch to the other time, but Conservatives will fight it because they think they'll lose two hours, and they'll literally threaten a Civil War over two hours, then someone will try to explain that they'll actually GAIN two hours, and they'll say it's a Communist hoax with their two Socialist hours, just handing them out to people who don't deserve them, like the welfare queens just helping themselves to as many hours as the Demon-rats can steal from the billionaires who have more hours than everybody else combined.
So they'll compromise, and go back to switching times twice a year to keep NOBODY happy, and America can go back to normal.
Watch Trump veto it because he didn't get his election rigging "SAVE" act passed.
Doesn’t the rest of the world observe standard time? Why would we be permanently out of step with the rest of the world?
Actually, all "standard" time means is that the time is somewhat related to the sun being directly overhead at noon. I say "somewhat" because once you carve the world up into zones like that, the sun will never be directly overhead at noon except maybe in the middle of the zone.
Did you know China has only one time zone? The entire huge country runs on Beijing time. The far west of the country sometimes doesn't see a sunrise until 10 AM.
So, there is really nothing "standard" about Standard Time at all.
I would like to see the world finally move to Swatch Internet Time and resolve all this silliness once and for all.
That seems like a lot of work just to make time work more easily in base 10. Rather than that, we could achieve a similar result by simply switching our basic math system from base 10 to base 12.
Because it's a solution that works?
Horses were a transport solution that worked.
And the fossil fuel industry is a solution that is proving to cause a myriad of problems. What a world.
You want to go back to horses?
Time zones and Daylight savings were once a testiment to man's ingenuity triumphing over the imperfection of nature. You want to go back to being a slave to the sun?
I literally do not care. Make it permanent either direction for christs sake.
Yeah. All being 'out of step' means is that it basically just shifts the time zones one step over. And as long as it just stays that way, it's fine.
As someone who works with timezones as a developer it doesnt really matter I don't think. Timezone are already kind of a mess of a concept and honestly I just want it tp stop changing, I don't really care which way.
Generally, yes. It's America being stupid again.
How close are they to impeaching pedophiles in office?
I'm happy to get rid of the change, but once again they ignore scientists and health experts with the choice of daylight time.
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
Did they? Because Arizona was actually exempt from the 1974 change and chose to stay at standard time. They made Standard Time permanent in 1968.
I once found a page that would show you what permanent DST or Standard time would look like in your area, but cannot find it now. Anyone know a link to something like that?
I don't know the page you're taking about, but I found this map years ago. It changed me from being a lifelong "make DST permanent" stan to stumping for permanent standard time.
People on the westernmost sides of time zones would get absolutely hosed in the mornings under permanent DST.
This makes no sense? I could care less that I get to see the sun on my way to sit at a desk at 7am.
I want to have the sun after I'm off work to enjoy my life. DST is way better
Hosed how?
My question exactly.
Under ST in the winter it’s dark when I get up and go to work, and it’s dark when I come home. Under DT, it would be the same.
In the summer, it’s sunny when I’m still trying to sleep in the morning and still sunny when I’m trying to sleep at night. Under ST it would be the same.
The only difference would be in spring and fall, when the transition time would shift earlier or later.
Yeah, I always hate it when I'm waking up to an alarm.
I think the was the same/similar map that I saw. It also let you put in a date and it would show you was times sun rise/set would roughly be.
Those lines need to be adjusted away from state borders. Those also cause problems.
Time zone lines tend to follow state borders.
Yes. That’s the problem.
Why is that. A problem? You have to have the line somewhere. It's better if it goes along an already existing imaginary line. If they didn't line up, you would need to remember sets of arbitrary lines instead of 1.
While I agree those lines aren't ideal, any other system would make it very hard to know when to adjust your watch up or down
I’m just saying that the natural borders of light don’t correlate with the borders of the state In some cases really skew the time.
It’s so weird that Hawaii is listed here because they don’t observe DST and they probably won’t jump ahead an hour just to sync up times with us.
I don't, but that seems like a pretty easy thing to calculate. timeanddate.com (or your local weather service, probably) will give you times for sunrise and sunset on any given day; just:
Unless you're in the southern hemisphere, then flip those two.
So if you're in New York:
Add an hour per time zone going west to figure out what the times for each time zone would be. Also, New York is pretty near the center of what the UTC-5 time zone would be if it were just a straight longitudinal band, so if you're near the eastern edge of your time zone it'll be about a half hour earlier than that, and if you're near the western edge of your time zone it'll be about a half hour later than that.
Personally, that 4:30 summer sunrise sounds brutal. Almost as brutal as the 4:30 sunset that they currently have in the winter. But I dunno, I feel like I could adapt to anything given enough time.
I'm originally from Indianapolis, which is in Eastern but practically on the border with Central, so the winter solstice would be 9:00 AM - 6:30 PM in permanent DST and the summer solstice would be 5:15 AM - 8:15 PM in permanent standard. But I'm in Auckland currently, so worldwide permanent DST would actually line me up pretty nicely with my friends back home, which could be cool.
Here in Maine, the sun rises around 4:50 AM on the summer solstice. That would be 3:50 AM if it was standard time, even worse.
Yuck, definitely.
Would be better if it was clear they did any research on the subject. Last time this came around it was clear, standard time was better for us. This now just feels like rich people will keep us poors on DST while they get the clock humans get a better night sleep with and still somehow take our money.
I hate that I can believe something like this.
I mean, if you're self employed, it can already work that way. I never set up any meetings before noon, that way I wake with the sun. Sure it means that I'm starting my day at kinda random times as far as the clock is concerned, but my body likes that way better than setting an alarm to wake at the same clock time every day.
This is what working second shift is like. Wake up whenever, go to bed whenever. It was nice. Well, that part was nice. Everything else about it sucked.
I loved working second shift for that reason! I never had to set my alarm! And I'm a night owl anyway so going to sleep at 1:30 or 2:00 am was fine. The part that sucked was I was working while other people were off work and awake so I only saw them on weekends. But I'm also mostly a loner so that was actually fine too. :)
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.
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.
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).
Daylight savings time is being fucking stupid and out of date.
But Standard Time is superior! I oppose this measure!
I hear this tossed around but, you're serious? In what form?
DST = more light during personal hours for the vast majority of people. Why would I want prime sunlight hours devoured by the corporate machine? No thank you.
Because dark is for sleep. It's less about making sure you have daylight to go do stuff and more about making sure people can sleep when it's dark.
I will absolutely agree that it is less fun, but sleep is pretty important. See also "Why we sleep" book by Matthew Walker. It will make you (albeit potentially briefly) stop drinking, cut caffeine, and go to bed early.
But it would still get dark unless you need to sleep at 5pm for whatever reason. Which isn't a majority I wouldn't think.
Will definitely look into that book.
I think it has a lot to do with where you live in a particular time zone too, not just ST vs DST.
I like to wake up early and go birdwatching.
So go to bed and get up an hour earlier.
That doesn’t help if they have to be at work before the birds are out of their roosts.
I suppose that's true, the birds don't care about time zone shenanigans!
When they blamed farmers for DST, a farmer said "Cows wake up with the sun, they don't have a watch"
Bad move, this should be something done at the state level only. Some states benefit more from permanent DST while others benefit more from permanent ST.
It's gonna be fun to see how many software updates this requires. But if they stick with it, I guess it might make things easier.
Sadly, it won't mean the problem goes away for software to handle since this would only be in the United States...
Would love this
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.
Farmers will figure it out. What a stupid thing to say.
The jury is still out about how people will cope with the long dark winter mornings. There may be buyer remorse.
And those people are stupid. You can't make the day longer by moving it around. If you live up north, you're going to be going to work in the dark or coming home in the dark. Deal with it. You can't fix it. I'm just sick and tired of changing the time twice a year for bullshit reasons.
You actually are making the usable part of the day longer. Come winter that meaning shifting back to normal time so that the mornings are not so dark for as long. Making the the day summer time all year long seems very superficial.
Seems like there might be a few more important things they could be looking at ..
“They” are capable of dealing with multiple issues at the same time. That’s why we elect them. Plus, this particular issue should be such a nothingburger, and from a logistical standpoint, actually is the opposite of expending effort to make it happen. We keep making a bigger deal out of doing away with the time change than we need to be and ultimately it ends up failing cause “OMG - change.”
I don't really care if there's daylight savings or not, like you say, it's a nothingburger. But it's not the opposite of expending effort, someone wasted their time drafting a bill and then presenting it to the house which is time they could have spent effecting useful change. Congress only meets for so long each year .. I guess it's better they spend time on this than passing some of the other nonsense being proposed in the US though.
Stupid
Time changes cause measurable harm. We should have gotten rid of this a long time ago.
Then make it Standard time. Not DST.
I honestly don't care which is picked. I just want the change to go away.
Fair. When the railroads in the US pushed for time zones we moved away from noon being the time when the sun was directly overhead to more of an average time when the sun was over essentially the middle of the zone. Now Congress is saying that noon is 1 hour before when the sun is overhead. That was true for half the year. Now it will always be true. We're abstracting what noon is even further.
I am not too worried about it being abstract, and just because something used to be one way isn't a very convincing argument for it to stay that way. And extra sunlight in the evening doesn't seem terrible.
I'm aware different people have different preferences though. And I am not going to tell someone they are wrong on something that as far as I can tell is purely subjective.
What's so special about the sun being at its highest point at noon? It doesn't correspond to most people's mid of the day these days anyway (that would need them to get up at 4 am and sleep at 8 pm); according to https://neurolaunch.com/when-do-most-people-go-to-sleep/ "Most adults go to sleep somewhere between 10:00 PM and midnight" meaning the middle of their day is between 2 and 4 pm (assuming 8 hours of sleep).
It's literally the definition. Cowboys can no longer have gun fights at high noon because if no longer exists.
My biggest problem with this change is not ending the biannual time change. But moving to perminent DST. All that is doing is moving the goal post. Eventually everyone will get used to it and start moving store hours to matches what the sun is actually doing. We'll adjust to the sun, not the other way around.
Try to pick sides on this time permanence is like someone saying "No thanks, that life vests color doesn't jive with my outfit" while they stand on a sinking Titanic.
Current data seems to suggest standard time is better aligned with circadian rhythm for most people. https://www.daylightsavingtime.info/dst-vs-standard-time
That or split the difference.
That's always seemed like a reasonable solution to me as well
Eventually the people who make the schedules will adapt to this new normal and the people who spent so much to push this on us will realize how dumb they are.
If 'measurable harm' is what your aiming to prevent, abolishing the time change is pissing in the wind. Let's start with something like gun violence, child poverty, homelessness, holy fuck, any number of issues. "Boohoo, my phone adjusted the time twice a year, I'm so hard done by. 😭"
Ummmm...does abolishing twice yearly time changes get in the way of working on gun violence, child poverty, homelessness, or any of the other issues? No? Then why be such an asshole about it?
We can only seem to work on one thing at a time, so how about we meet in the middle and do fuck all about anything but whinge about mild inconveniences?
Who is this we? I'm pretty positive most people are capable of more than just one thing. And since the current US congress is fucking worthless for anything other than enabling blatant corruption, I'm going to enjoy not having time changes if this actually makes it into law.
Also it isn't just an inconvenience. It literally kills people.
Shame, one of the most endearing and quirky Americanisms. I was rather fond of it
Is it not done elsewhere?
It's mostly just US, part of Canada, and Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_country
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.