There are 86,410 seconds in a day.
1,440 minutes.
The most daylight in Washington, D.C. emerges in June, stretching 14 hours and 57 minutes.
The shortest is near the winter solstice, clocking in at a scant nine hours and 29 minutes.
Congress can’t change any of that. But it can alter how we perceive it.
Lawmakers routinely fork over to public tax cuts, economic stimulus and the elimination of a cumbersome law or policy.
Awarding something to the voters is part of the Congressional DNA.
So even though time is finite, lawmakers are again trying to give people something: more daylight.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Sunshine Protection Act this week, 308-117.
HOUSE PASSES SUNSHINE PROTECTION ACT TO MAKE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERMANENT
No. Our sun wasn’t in jeopardy of going supernova — although it is about halfway through its 10 billion year lifespan. Lawmakers weren’t safeguarding it. But they wanted you to think they were.
The Sunshine Protection Act permanently shifts the U.S. onto Daylight Saving Time. That’s a congressionally contrived temporal statute.
In other words, with adoption of the bill, we will never shift back to Standard Time again.
No more “springing forward” or “falling back.”
We’re on Daylight Saving Time now. And we are here to stay if this becomes law.
“Polling shows that two-thirds of Americans want to unlock the clock. My bill is simply a solution to make Daylight Saving Time permanent,” said Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), one of the chief sponsors of the legislation. “Allowing an extra hour of sunlight in the evening gives families more time for outside sports activities and school.”
An extra hour of sunlight? Really?
In other words, it’s really the same amount of light – or lack thereof – at 7 p.m. under Daylight Saving Time that we could experience at 6 p.m. under Standard Time.
But Congress is in the giving business.
“Why are we forcing families, businesses, and communities to adjust their schedules every spring and fall? The twice-yearly clock change is a relic of the past that no longer reflects the way Americans live,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.)
Perhaps it’s an idea whose time has come.
The biannual time change is maddening.
My mother taught second grade at the same elementary school I attended in rural Ohio.
One year, the school custodian got to work early on the Monday morning after the fall time change. He began to reset the clocks in each classroom. He maneuvered from south to north through the building, updating the clocks in the kindergarten. Then onto the first grade. Second grade after that. Third grade. Finally, fourth grade.
But as you traversed the school, each clock ran two to three minutes behind the one the custodian set previously.
We theorized that he looked at his watch, say around 7:10 a.m. – and proceeded to set each clock to 7:10 – regardless of the actual time. By the time you got to fourth grade, the clocks were nearly 20 minutes behind schedule.
As they say, timing is everything.
Only an episode involving my mother and grandmother tops the school’s time warp.
My mother once called my grandmother to remind her the time change would kick in at 2 a.m. on Sunday.
My grandmother was incredulous.
“You mean I have to sit up until two o’clock in the morning to change it?” she asked.
Establishing a year-around time isn’t something worth losing sleep over. Most just hate the exercise.
HOUSE PASSES DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME REFORM AS TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR ENDING CLOCK CHANGE
“People in Tennessee wanted it gone. It’s ridiculous. In the fall it starts getting dark around 5:00. Kind of depresses me. Really kind of a doggy downer. So I’m kind of digging the fact that we’re going to fix it,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
Only one member spoke out in opposition when the House debated the time-change bill: Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.)
Her grievances focused on why Congress was even considering the legislation when it wasn’t trained on bread-and-butter subjects which could be key in the midterms.
“We aren’t voting on bills right now that would reduce the sky-high costs of food, fuel, health care, or addressing the President’s war in Iran. Instead, we’re considering a bill that was deadly and dangerous in the past, in the ‘70s,” said Dean.
Dean is referring to an experiment in 1974. Congress voted in late 1973 to park the nation on Daylight Saving Time for two solid years. This would help combat the OPEC oil embargo and fuel shortages.
It was a disaster.
Kids in Washington, DC headed for school around 8:30 a.m. It’s unclear whether the custodian properly adjusted the clocks. But it was “jet black” in DC, according to one news account from the time. Some kids set off for school with flashlights illuminating their paths.
You might not give politics the time of day.
But the time of day infuriated Americans in the mid-1970s.
Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed embraced the year-round time switch in December 1973.
But that number plunged to 42 percent by August 1974.
Future Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) offered a measure to torpedo the Daylight Saving Time project. It passed. And by fall, everyone was falling back.
A House panel examining the issue declared that changing the clocks “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time.”
In 2022, the Senate unexpectedly approved a year-round Daylight Saving Time bill. But it languished as the House hit the snooze button.
Now the House approved an updated version of the legislation. President Trump called switching the clocks “ridiculous.” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) even discussed the issue with him this week.
“He seems to be very enthusiastic about it. I would put it that way. And I think we’re going to move the bill pretty quickly,” said Kennedy. “Some of my colleagues are opposed to it. They’re entitled with their opinion. But I think we’ll have a vote soon.”
If the Senate passes the bill, some people will say it’s about time.
But others, like Madeleine Dean, remember the 1970s.
George Santayana declared that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
But if you’re running an hour ahead of Daylight Saving Time, perhaps you should switch your clock back and fix it to Standard Time.
