Once again, state legislatures are considering bills and resolutions to stop the toggling of clocks twice a year between daylight saving time and standard time. As we prepare to turn our clocks forward one hour on Sunday, surveys consistently show Americans are annoyed by the annual time changes. A Payless Power survey last year found that 74% of Americans support ending daylight time entirely, with the primary complaint being that it disrupts sleep. Still, no change is on the horizon, despite ample state legislative attention.
A curious nuance that is often lost in such surveys and in the way the issue is portrayed lies in the distinction between disliking daylight time and disapproving of the clock change twice a year. Many of the studies critiquing daylight time point to the time change, especially “spring forward,” as having detrimental impacts such as causing a greater number of heart attacks and car crashes. So, is the problem the time change—or the reality of being one hour ahead in time? One view is that in the days after the time change, people adjust to the new schedule and appreciate the extra hour of daylight, and this is reflected in state legislative trends.
In the last five years, 19 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change and, in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation. States cannot independently change time zones or alter the length of daylight time, which begins and concludes on statutorily mandated dates. Thus, Congress must act before states could implement year-round daylight time.
States That Would Make Daylight Time Permanent
In recent years, 19 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to move to year-round daylight saving time if Congress allows.
- 2022: Colorado and Kentucky (resolution)
- 2021: Alabama, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana
- 2020: Idaho, Louisiana, Ohio (resolution), South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming
- 2019: Delaware, Maine, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington
- 2018: Florida (California voters also authorized the change in 2018 but legislative action is pending)
Preliminary information for time zone bills in this year’s legislative sessions indicates 36 bills or resolutions are under consideration in 20 states to institute permanent daylight time, if Congress were to allow such a change. And 27 bills or resolutions in 20 states would put the state on permanent standard time, which is currently allowed by federal law. (Two states—Arizona and Hawaii—and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands observe permanent standard time.)
Two of the bills to move to standard time, in Maine and Virginia, failed to pass. These totals include bills advocating both approaches that are under consideration simultaneously in 12 states. One state—Indiana—is considering a resolution petitioning the U.S. Department of Transportation to hold hearings on placing the entire state in the same time zone. Currently, Indiana’s northwest and southwest corners are in the Central time zone, with the remainder of the state in the Eastern time zone.
This year in Nebraska, the unicameral legislature considered and rejected a measure to make daylight time permanent. An amendment to the bill to make standard time permanent also failed. Nebraska Sen. Danielle Conrad, the bill’s lead sponsor, says people are tired of changing clocks twice a year.
“When you look at the polling, when you talk to your neighbors, well north of 60% of Americans are tired of changing our clocks twice a year,” Conrad told Nebraska Public Media. “It is disruptive from a health perspective, from a conservation perspective, from a parenting perspective, and it definitely impacts economic issues as well.”
But Nebraska Sen. Robert Clements told WOWT 6News in Omaha that he’d prefer to leave things the way they are. “We’ve been doing it this way 50 years now.”
Also, five bills are pending in Congress, including HR 1474, which would make daylight time observance optional.
For those interested in the role of the Transportation Department, a 2022 internal audit report suggests improvements in department procedures for responding to requests from states and localities for time zone changes and daylight time exemptions.
The national debate and state-specific initiatives are continuing into 2024. For the foreseeable future, clock changing remains the law of the land in all but a few places. So, once again, the nation will lose an hour of sleep on March 10 as clocks spring forward.
Visit the NCSL Daylight Saving Time page for more on state legislative time change actions. For more on the history of time zones and daylight saving time, visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Jim Reed directs the NCSL Environment, Energy and Transportation Program.