President Donald Trump on Thursday pressed Congress to pass a measure that would make daylight saving time permanent in the United States. The president celebrated a House committee’s move to advance the legislation forward and called on lawmakers to solidify the passage of efforts to end the practice of shifting clocks forward by one hour in the spring and back in the fall. Trump said he would “work very hard” to see the Sunshine Protection Act signed into law. “This is so important in that Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks,” Trump wrote. “Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!”
Trump’s post responded to the House energy and commerce committee’s move to advance the measure in a bipartisan 48-1 vote. The committee rolled Rep. Vern Buchanan’s (R-FL) Sunshine Protection Act into a broader transportation package. Now included in Rep. Troy Nehls’s (R-TX) Motor Vehicle Modernization Act, the daylight saving time measure is being brought to the House floor for debate.
There is widespread support for ending the practice of “springing forward” and “falling back” twice a year. An AP-NORC poll conducted in October found only 12% of Americans favor the current system, while 47% oppose it, though there was less consensus about what should replace it.
