President Trump is calling on Republican senators to pass the Sunshine Protection Act before the fall clock change, but the bill faces a 60-vote threshold in a chamber that won't return from recess until mid-September.
Trump posted a lengthy statement on Truth Social on Wednesday urging the Senate to act quickly on the measure, which the House passed last month with broad bipartisan support, 308 votes in favor, 117 against. The bill would lock American clocks on daylight saving time year-round, ending the twice-yearly ritual that shifts an hour of evening sunlight to morning every November and reverses it every March.
"People are sick and tired of having to change their clocks twice a year," Trump wrote. "It is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly." He cited health risks, higher crime, car accidents involving pedestrians, and seasonal depression as consequences of the current system, and argued that an extra hour of evening sunlight would boost retail, tourism, restaurants, and youth sports.
The lopsided House vote gave the bill real momentum. The measure cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee 48, 1 in May before the Rules Committee advanced it in a 6, 4 vote, teeing up the full floor vote that produced the final 308, 117 tally.
The Senate is a different problem. Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota has previously cast doubt on the bill's ability to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to clear a filibuster. The Senate is on a five-week recess and will not return until September 14, meaning the earliest the chamber could take up the measure is still weeks away.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who sponsors the Senate version of the Sunshine Protection Act, shared Trump's post on X the same day and echoed the president's urgency. Scott has framed the push as a matter of popular demand:
"Every day, I hear from Americans who are sick and tired of changing their clocks back and forth. It's time to pass my Sunshine Protection Act and lock the clock!"
Scott also posted separately on Wednesday: "@POTUS is spot on! Americans want MORE SUNSHINE, not less. It's time for the Senate to pass my Sunshine Protection Act ASAP!"
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has publicly backed Scott's bill as well, adding another Republican voice to the effort. The White House has signaled Trump would sign the legislation if it reaches his desk, calling it a "popular, common-sense reform."
Roughly 20 states have passed their own laws declaring they would adopt permanent daylight saving time if Congress gives the green light. Under current federal law, states can opt out of daylight saving time and stay on standard time year-round, Arizona and Hawaii already do, but they cannot move to permanent daylight saving time without an act of Congress.
That legal bottleneck is exactly what the Sunshine Protection Act would remove. And the House's commanding vote suggests the idea has broad appeal across party lines. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Florida Republican, argued that "having more predictable daylight hours is a practical improvement that benefits workers, businesses and visitors alike." A 2025 AP-NORC poll found 56 percent of Americans prefer making daylight saving time permanent.
Trump leaned into the bipartisan angle in his post, writing that this "is an issue that Republicans, Dumocrats, and Independents can unite behind", using a deliberate misspelling of "Democrats" that appeared in his original Truth Social text. He closed with a direct instruction: "I am asking Republican Senators to PASS THE SUNSHINE PROTECTION ACT, ASAP."
Not every Republican is on board. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas posted a U.S. map on X last month showing how late the sun would rise in January under permanent daylight saving time. The map highlighted North Dakota as the most extreme case, sunrise at 9:46 a.m. in the dead of winter. For much of the Midwest, mornings would stay dark well past the time children head to school and commuters hit the road.
Cotton's concern is not new. Congress tried permanent daylight saving time once before, during the 1973 energy crisis. The experiment lasted less than a year. Parents objected to sending children to school in pitch darkness, and public enthusiasm faded fast once Americans lived with the tradeoff through a full winter.
A competing bill, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act, would also eliminate the twice-yearly clock change, but by making standard time permanent instead. That approach would keep winter mornings brighter at the cost of earlier sunsets in the evening. The bill's sponsors were not named in available reporting, and it has received far less attention than Scott's version.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat, voiced that same worry during the House debate, warning that "millions of Americans will wake up during the winter months in complete darkness with the sun not rising until long after people get up and travel to school or work or have to go about their days."
The practical obstacle now is the calendar. With the Senate out until September 14, no floor action can happen for weeks. Even after senators return, Thune has given no public indication he will bring the bill up quickly, or that he believes the votes are there.
Trump's full Truth Social statement laid out a sweeping case for the change, citing benefits that ranged from lower robbery and murder rates to reduced cardiac risk, fewer pedestrian accidents, and savings on energy bills. He framed the extra hour of evening daylight as a quality-of-life improvement that touches everything from children walking home from school to the restaurant industry's bottom line.
Fox News reported that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, said "Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of this policy and want to end the practice of springing forward and falling back." The committee's 48, 1 vote backed up that claim.
Whether that enthusiasm translates to 60 Senate votes remains an open question. Thune controls the floor schedule, and Cotton's sunrise map gave skeptics a concrete visual to rally around. The 1973 precedent, when Congress reversed course in under a year, hangs over the debate as a cautionary tale.
The broader congressional calendar is already crowded with spending fights and policy priorities when the Senate returns. Whether Thune carves out floor time for a clock bill, even one the president is pushing publicly, will say a lot about how seriously the upper chamber takes an issue that 308 House members already decided was worth their vote.
Americans have been asking Washington to pick a time and stick with it for years. The House finally did. Now the question is whether the Senate will do what it does best, wait.
