Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, meaning come 2:00 a.m., we all move our clocks forward one hour.
But a bill has been re-introduced in Congress that could eliminate that.
Last year, Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act. The bill unanimously passed through the Senate but stalled in the House amid questions over whether year-round daylight saving time was actually safe or healthy.
That included the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who called for the U.S. to stay on permanent standard time.
However, a bipartisan group of Senators including Marco Rubio recently re-introduced the Act to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
At the state level, a pair of bills is in the New York State Assembly and Senate that seek to make DST permanent for New York. Both bills, which were filed in the current legislative session, are pending in committee.
Daylight Saving Time was first introduced in 1918 as an energy conservation effort, shifting more daylight to the end of the day and less at the start.
The new Sunshine Protection Act is similar to the bill introduced last year. If passed, the clocks would change for the final time this Sunday and not change again in November, or ever again.
Doing so would also mean we would lose an hour of daylight in the morning from November through February. For example, the sun typically rises around 7:15 a.m. and sets around 4:30 p.m. on the first day of winter in New York City. Permanent daylight saving time would change sunrise to 8:15 a.m. and sunset to 5:30 p.m.
With Sunday’s “spring forward,” it’s also recommended that people test and change batteries in their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
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