On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would lock in daylight saving time as permanent. The bill is called the Sunshine Protection Act, and it’s sponsored by two Republicans, Brett Guthrie and Gus Bilirakis. It seems to stem from something President Trump promised shortly after he was elected the second time. The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2024 But this bill wouldn’t eliminate daylight saving time. It would lock it in—though Trump seems to have revised is stance and become a pro-permanent daylight saving time guy more recently. Either way, passage of the bill would end this abomination: Daylight saving was perhaps originally conceived by a New Zealand entomologist named George Hudson who realized that in the longer summer days, he was wasting two precious hours of bug-collecting time because they were in the morning. He felt that the extra hours should simply be transferred to the evening so he could prance around in the meadows after dinner, instead of, y’know, waking up earlier. For non-entomologists, the time could be used “for cricket, gardening, cycling or any other outdoor pursuit desired,” he said.