House Rules Committee takes up the permanent daylight saving time bill ahead of a floor vote this week

The House Rules Committee meets at 4 p.m. Monday in H-313 of the Capitol to write the rule for H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, the bill that would make daylight saving time the year-round standard across most of the country. The committee's notice, posted July 9, lists the bill first among four measures. A floor vote is expected this week.

The bill is short. It repeals Section 3 of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the provision that creates the annual daylight saving period, and it amends the 1918 Calder Act to move each U.S. time zone one hour ahead of where it sits today. Eastern time, for example, would sit four hours behind Greenwich rather than five, and every other zone shifts by the same hour. The practical effect is that clocks would stay where they are in November instead of falling back.

What the text actually does

The version posted by the Rules Committee is the bill as introduced on January 3, 2025, by Representative Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican. It carries no delayed effective date.

On states opting out, the text is narrower than the shorthand suggests. It says a state, or an area of a state, that had already exempted itself from daylight saving time under current law before the date of enactment may choose between the new advanced standard time and the standard time it observes today. That covers Hawaii and most of Arizona, the two places that sit out the clock change now. Under 15 U.S.C. 260a, a state can exempt itself from daylight saving time by state law, so a state that acts before enactment can hold at standard time. There is no separate opt-out written into H.R. 139 for states that do nothing.

How it got here

The House Energy and Commerce Committee took up the language on May 21, 2026, and reported it 48-1, according to NBC's report on the markup. Buchanan's office said in a statement that day that the Sunshine Protection Act was folded into an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act, H.R. 7389, and sent to the floor. The measure now before the Rules Committee is H.R. 139 itself.

Buchanan has introduced the bill in every Congress since 2018. His office counts 32 cosponsors in the House. A Senate companion, S. 29, from Senator Rick Scott of Florida, has 18.

President Trump has pressed Congress on the issue. In an April post on Truth Social he wrote that staying on daylight saving time would be "Very popular and, most importantly, no more changing of the clocks, a big inconvenience and, for our government, A VERY COSTLY EVENT!!!"

Representative Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, has said permanent daylight saving time would improve safety and help his state's tourism industry.

The opposition

The Senate passed a permanent daylight saving time bill by unanimous consent in March 2022. It went nowhere in the House.

Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, has said he was responsible for that bill's later fate and that he intends to block this one. In an October 28, 2025, floor speech he said the change "would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour" and that, as in 1974, "kids would either walk to school in the pitch black or schools would have to push back start times." He put winter sunrise at nearly 9 a.m. in Seattle, 9:15 a.m. in Grand Rapids and close to 9:45 a.m. in Williston, North Dakota. Cotton also disputed the energy argument, saying afternoon savings would be offset by morning use.

The 1974 comparison is to the year-round daylight saving time Congress enacted during the oil crisis. It was repealed within the year.

Several medical organizations oppose the bill from the other direction, arguing for permanent standard time rather than permanent daylight saving time. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the American Medical Association and the National Sleep Foundation say standard time better matches the body's circadian rhythm. Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, told NBC: "There's no law we can pass to move the sun to our will."

What to watch

The Rules Committee decides Monday evening whether the bill comes to the floor under a closed rule or with amendments in order. If the House passes it, the bill goes to a Senate where the last two attempts died in the opposite chamber, and where at least one member has promised to object.