President Trump is turning up the heat on Senate Republicans to move forward with legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent, blaming Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for stalling the bipartisan effort to end the twice-a-year clock change.
The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which Trump has nicknamed the “No More Changing of Clocks Act,” in July by a 308-117 vote. The measure, however, has yet to make it through the Senate.
In a lengthy Truth Social post early Friday, the president made his case against the current system.
“A ridiculous Clock changing process that takes place twice a year, costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine,” Trump wrote.
“People don’t want to go around changing their Clocks anymore and, besides, far and away, most people like having an hour of extra sunlight in the evening, rather than in the morning,” he continued.
Trump took direct aim at Cotton, whose reelection bid he has endorsed, saying the bill was being “held up” by the Arkansas Republican “for reasons unknown.”
Cotton has been one of the most vocal critics of permanent daylight saving time. The senator has warned that later sunrises in the winter months would force children to head to school, and millions of Americans to commute to work, in the dark.
“If permanent daylight saving time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans,” Cotton said last year.
The president, however, argued that extra daylight in the evening would help cut down on crime and traffic accidents. He also said it would benefit public health, along with industries such as sports, tourism, restaurants and retail.
“People are sick and tired of having to change their Clocks twice a year. Even most farmers would rather have additional time in the evening to harvest their crops,” Trump wrote.
The president stressed that the issue is one that Republicans, Democrats and independents can all get behind.
“It is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly,” he added.
This is not the first time Washington has tried year-round daylight saving time. Records show Congress moved most of the country to permanent daylight saving time in early 1974 in response to the energy crisis.
That experiment quickly ran into trouble. As winter sunrises came later, concerns mounted over children traveling to school before daylight, and lawmakers ended the experiment that fall.
More recently, the Senate unanimously passed a similar bill in 2022, but that effort stalled in the House.
This time around, the situation has flipped. The House has already acted, while the proposal now faces an uncertain path in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has also raised doubts about whether the measure can win the 60 votes required to advance in the upper chamber.
With the House on board and the president publicly pushing for action, the fate of the bill now rests with the Senate, where Trump is making clear he wants Republicans to get it done.
