January 1, Daylight Saving Time Gone For Good?

The Senate unanimously voted to approve a proposal making daylight saving time permanent. If the measure passes through the House and is signed by President Joe Biden, it would mean that Americans would no longer have to set their clocks back in the fall.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the bill’s lead sponsor, highlighted a variety of benefits to making daylight saving time permanent, including reduced seasonal affective disorder and more daylight for school sports.

“There’s strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock switching has, there’s an increase in heart attacks, car accidents and pedestrian accidents,” Rubio said from the Senate floor.

“The benefits of daylight saving time has been accounted for in the research: Reduced crime as there is light later in the day, decrease in seasonal depression that many feel during standard time and the practical one.”

“In a country we desperately want our kids outside, playing, doing sports, not just to sit in front of a TV playing video games all day. It gets tough in many parts of the country to be able to do that. What ends up happening is for the 16 weeks of the year, if you don’t have a park or outdoor facility with lights, you’re basically shut down at 5 p.m., in some cases 4 p.m.,” he added.

Rubio stressed that the proposal wouldn’t take effect “until Nov. 20, 2023, because airlines and other transportation has built out a schedule and they asked for a few months to make the adjustment.”

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Senate unanimously approves making daylight saving time permanent