In spite of bill to eliminate it, 48 states will reset clocks for Daylight Saving Time in March

In spite of a bill making its way through Congress to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, 48 of the 50 US states will once again reset their clocks on March 12 and lose an hour.

The “Sunshine Protection Act,” introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio in 2022, aims to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Currently, every state except Hawaii and Arizona switch to Standard Time once a year and back to DST after 8 months in order to take advantage of sunlight hours in the warmer months. There is pending legislation in a majority of US states to end the practice of switching clocks twice a year.

The SPA passed the US Senate last year in a unanimous vote but has not yet been introduced in the House of Representatives for a vote. Many states which have already passed legislation that would do away with the time switch are simply waiting on Congress to pass a bill for the president to sign so they can enact the new laws in their states.

Some sleep experts believe a permanent switch to Standard Time would be more beneficial for human rest patterns, but having more daylight hours offers people more opportunity to stimulate the economy by working and consuming more instead of sleeping. Most polling shows a majority of Americans agree they want to do away with resetting their clocks – and sleep cycles twice a year.