House Votes For Permanent Daylight Saving Time (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0184464916
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/15/0346241/house-votes-for-permanent-daylight-saving-time
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/us/politics/house-daylight-savings-time-sunshine-protection-act.html
> President Trump has championed the effort to save an extra hour of daylight before nightfall and make the time zone permanent, describing the ritual of moving clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall a "ridiculous, twice yearly production." "We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day," Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post in May. "And who can be against that."
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> A sizable bloc of Florida Republicans in Congress is leading the charge on legislation that would do just that, mandating daylight saving time nationwide for the entire year. Representative Vern Buchanan of the Tampa Bay area is backing the bill, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, another Tampa Bay-area Republican, cosponsored it. House leaders agreed to allow a vote on the measure this week as a sweetener for Ms. Luna in their efforts to persuade her to lift a legislative blockade she had maintained as she sought to force Senate action on a voting restriction bill Mr. Trump has championed.
[1] https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/house-passes-legislation-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/us/politics/house-daylight-savings-time-sunshine-protection-act.html
DST is Dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
If Daylight Saving's Time did not exist currently and it was proposed as a new concept it would never be adopted.
Keep the time constant, school and work hours can be adjusted twice or so a year if wanted.
Re: (Score:3)
> school and work hours can be adjusted twice or so a year if wanted.
Indeed. Now how do we do this on a societal level quickly and easily in a way that everyone remains in synchronisation and there's minimal confusion and no requirement to adjust signage / information?
The idea that opening or working times are a choice are a delusion by someone without kids or without an employer (contractors can chose their working hours).
Re: (Score:2)
I really dont get why it's an issue? Our civilization can operate in perpetual night. We have lights galore. Its not like we need to refill kerosene... No, changing clocks is the stupidest idea ever. In fact, I think we should get rid of time zones. you live in X, you wake up at Y, and you go to work / school at Z. Its the same time everywhere, and your local school or work sets its schedule accordingly. For fucks sake are we really that stupid anymore? Every human on the planet that needs to operate on a
Re: (Score:2)
Not having DST, especially in regions away from the equator, is also dumb. You have to deal with the fact, that the Sun rises in the summer much early than in the winter, and getting up in total darkness and not having any daylight until late in the workday like DST in the winter is as annoying as trying to go to bed when it's still bright outside.
So either you abolish a strict day schedule and adopt during the year, which is not only two switch days a year, but multiple times, or you have some kind of sw
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that when you get a bit further from the equator, it goes back to being "dumb". There's not enough winter daylight to go round no matter how you play with the clocks. Scotland only has six hours of daylight in the winter - so you're either going to work in the dark or coming home in the dark. And unless you're only going to sleep four hours a night, you'll be sleeping when it's full daylight for much of the summer. Changing the clock gets a brief respite in spring and autumn, but only for a couple of weeks before the sun overtakes the clock again.
Re: (Score:2)
Which might be true for the Southern U.S. states, true.
On the other hand, we tried this in the 1970ies already, and it was abolished immediately after the first winter, after traffic accidents during morning rush hour had risen sharply, and school children had to wait for the school bus in the coldest time of the day (and the school bus took longer because of all the icy roads anyway).
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to work in Antarctica. One summer on a new station in the center authorities decided to put us on the same time as the big coastal station, saying that we had sun 24/7 anyway so it wouldn't matter. The idea was to synchronize communication with the head station. Well, the sun still has daily ups and downs, so we had to get up when the sun was lowest and start work when it was the fucking coldest at -50C and we'd go to bed when it was a balmy -20C. After a few days of that we started getting up and start work later and later, until we'd start work at 2pm or so !!!
The next year we had our own timezone.
Re:DST is Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Even in Germany it only takes a couple of weeks and it is dark again in the winter and bright in the summer. It is even faster up north.
We are living in the 21st century, for fuck's sake. We have both artificial light and window blinds.
Re: (Score:2)
I keep all my clocks on UTC now. I can't be bothered to change them twice a year.
I'm just hoping that they abandon leap seconds as well. If another one comes I might switch to TAI.
Re: (Score:2)
The rest of the world laughs at how the greatest country in the world suddenly dies because it's not light outside. Maybe that's why Trump wants Greenland? To teach Americans how to use light switches?
Re: More dead Americans (Score:2)
Publish a new schedule. All good now.
Re: (Score:1)
Teach your kids to look both ways before crossing the street?
The EU did that too (Score:2)
So they have to, at some point, stop this failed experiment. But has it been implemented? No.
The power of the stupid (politicians, this time) to keep rituals alive that nobody wants is amazing.
That's stucking fupid. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not just discard the whole idea of DST instead of putting it into permanent effect?
The whole concept is an attempt to redefine time as a way of addressing perceived social problems. Schedule activities around the clock, not the clock around activities.
Re: (Score:1)
I should have added:
"In general, renaming things does not fix a problem."
Though heaven knows, lots of stupid people try it.
Everyone gets time from a smart phone (Score:2)
I propose a continuous adjustment of clocks between summer and winter to avoid the step changes between daylight and standard time.
I mean this whole business of mean solar time has us meandering about when the sun rises and sets anyway,
Welp... as a self-employed person... (Score:2)
I guess I'll be an hour late to work from now on. Or an hour early, depending on how you look at it.
Wish we'd do this in the UK! (Score:1)
I've always found it daft to be told to get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour earlier in summer, so just over 20 years ago I "noped out" and just stayed on GMT year-round. It suits me well, my sleep improved no end in summer as I was no longer trying to go to bed an hour before I normally would.
It's awkward explaining it to people, so I don't normally mention it, but I've not had any problems with work, or keeping appointments etc. At my last job as far as I was concerned in summer my work hours were
Wish Australia had it, even the equatorial parts (Score:2)
We have DST, but only some states. But the sun coming up at 4:45am in summer sucks up near the tropics and makes no sense. I've often thought we should simply introduce it year round in all states.
They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:2)
Specifically, for the mainland (see [1]https://www.timeanddate.com/ti... [timeanddate.com]). We should stay on CET
[1] https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/netherlands
Re:They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
If the Netherlands did this, they would reverse it immediately after the first winter. Not getting any sunlight until past 10.00 AM is so annoying, and the cost of road maintenance because rush hours is when everywhere, there is still ice on the roads, will be prohibitive.
People complaining have simply no clue how it is to have DST in the winter, and can't imagine.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree people complaining have no clue. The idea that peak hour follows the sun is just stupid, as you can see by the wide WIDE differences between summer and winter sunrise / sunset times. Add to that the insane amount of road maintenance that is done overnight in NL and your post ends up with only one point left: You think it's annoying.
But the Netherlands is the Netherlands. The entire country thinks everything is annoying at all times. The rain is annoying, the sun is annoying, the cold is annoying, th
Re: (Score:2)
It's not only that. It's more that then, the very short daylight is concentrated in the evening, because you get up an hour early, during the coldest period of the whole day, and then you are wasting the daylight in the afternoon, when it is too cold anyway to have any outdoor activities which could profiteer from the light.
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Most of the world doesn't have DST. It's really just Europe and the US. Somehow they manage.
Re: (Score:1)
This is a non issue in 2026. LED lamps are everywhere on the poles in all the headlights and LED flashlights last forever. Those LED elastic headbands are amazing when walking the dog in the dark and hands are free. I get up at 4AM all year long so its always dark. Its part of life to have darkness!
Re: They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:1)
Go back to sundials. Twelve noon is always when the sun is overhead. Nobody cares about train schedules.
Re: They should do the same in The Netherlands (Score:1)
No. Permanent standard time is ideal for human health and balance of daylight throughout the day. Due to where NL is in the timezone, it already has effective permanent DST even with standard time.
Re: (Score:2)
> Permanent standard time is ideal for human health and balance of daylight throughout the day.
That is not true. Left without clocks, humans in median latitudes tend to sleep longer in winter than in the summer. A standard schedule throughout the year is not healthy, except you live close to the equator, where the day length does not vary much during the year.