In March, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the Sunshine Protection Act that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent in the country beginning in November 2023.
However, it looks like we'll continue to turn back the clocks for a bit longer. The Sunshine Protection Act has hit a wall in the U.S. House due to disagreements in language and other bills of more importance, according to The Hill.
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, explained to the publication what's causing the hold up, and added that if they were to pass the bill it wouldn't be until the fall.
"I can’t say it’s a priority," Pallone said. "We have so many other priorities, but it doesn’t mean because it’s not a priority that we’re not trying to work on it. We are."
"If we can accomplish anything, it wouldn’t be until the fall," he added.
When the bill unanimously passed in the Senate back in March, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) expressed his pleasure with the idea of putting an end to the "stupidity" of changing the clocks twice a year.
"Just this past weekend, we all went through that biannual ritual of changing the clock back and forth and the disruption that comes with it. And one has to ask themselves after a while why do we keep doing it?" Rubio said, per CNN.
"If we can get this passed, we don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore," he added.
According to a YouGov poll among over 2,200 adults from March, after the Senate passed the bill, 59% said they would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. 22% were unsure, and only 19% said they would not want to make it permanent.
Pallone went on to say that some of the disagreements in the House are over if the permanent time should be daylight saving or standard. He also pointed out that lawmakers' views are based on their geographical location, saying it's "regional and depends on your district." Those in places with high volumes of tourism are in favor of daylight saving time so visitors stay out later, while farming areas prefer the extra hour in the morning.
"We continue to try to come up with a consensus but so far, it’s eluded us," Pallone said.
"The problem is that a lot of people say to me, ‘Oh, we should just have, you know, we shouldn’t switch back and forth, we should just have standard or daylight saving,’ but then they disagree over which one to enact. And so that’s the problem," he added. "We need a consensus that if we’re gonna have one time, what is it? And I haven’t been able to get a consensus on that."
A Democratic aide told The Hill that the best chance to pass the Sunshine Protection Act was right after it was passed in the Senate, adding that it's "really kind of hard to regain that momentum."
"If this bill was going to move this Congress, like, we would’ve had to move it right after the Senate passed it," the aide said. "I think that was kind of like our shot, and since it didn’t happen then, like it’s now kind of fallen off as a priority."
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