House Passes Permanent Daylight Saving Bill Brussels Couldn’t Finish

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 308 to 117 on Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent, sending the Sunshine Protection Act to a Senate that let a nearly identical bill die in 2022. The measure, backed by President Donald Trump, would end the twice yearly clock change nationwide, letting states opt out only if they act before the law takes effect.

Seven years ago, the European Union tried almost the same fix. Its own proposal to scrap the twice yearly clock change passed the European Parliament by a landslide in 2019, then stalled inside the Council of the European Union and has gathered dust ever since.

The House Vote in Numbers

Representative Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who wrote the bill, said Americans are “tired of the biannual time change.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee had already backed the measure 48 to 1 in May, and Tuesday’s floor vote showed how little appetite is left in the chamber for defending the current system.

The bill would lock the country onto the clock time it currently runs from March to November, the stretch known as daylight saving time. A state could still choose standard time year round, but only by passing its own exemption before the federal law takes effect. Hawaii and most of Arizona already sit outside the system entirely.

Trump has pushed hard for the change. “I am going to work very hard to see The Sunshine Protection Act signed into Law,” he wrote on Truth Social, calling the current system a “ridiculous, twice yearly production.” The White House sent an internal memo to Hill offices Tuesday urging support, describing the bill as a “popular, common-sense reform.”

The text of the bill repeals the seasonal clock-change mandate written into the Uniform Time Act of 1966. House leaders reportedly allowed the floor vote partly to ease a standoff with Representative Anna Paulina Luna, the bill’s Florida cosponsor, who had been blocking unrelated legislation while pressing for Senate action on a separate measure.

Brussels Tried This First, and Got Stuck

Europe already ran this experiment, in slow motion, and it stalled. In March 2019, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to scrap the bloc’s own twice yearly clock change by 2021.

The plan needed the Council of the European Union to agree too. It never did. Member states could not settle whether to lock onto permanent summer time or permanent winter time, and the EU Council’s page on the matter shows no timeline for a decision.

European diplomatic sources say Germany remains the main political brake on the change, wary that mismatched national clocks would scramble cross-border rail schedules, flights and the trading windows shared minute for minute by the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Euronext and Madrid’s BME. Spain revived the push anyway this year, formally asking Brussels to scrap the clock change starting in 2026.

Both sides are chasing the same public complaint. Neither has been able to close the deal.

What Happens to the Time Difference With Europe?

If the Senate passes the bill, the clock gap between the U.S. East Coast and Europe would shrink by an hour for roughly five months of the year. Americans would stay on daylight time through the winter while Europe falls back to standard time, narrowing what is now a steady five or six hour difference to four or five.

Right now, the East Coast sits five hours behind London and six behind Paris, Berlin and Madrid for most of the year, because both sides shift their clocks together each spring and fall. Lock the U.S. permanently onto its spring forward time and that symmetry breaks the moment Europe falls back in late October.

For the five months Europe spends on winter time, roughly late October to late March, the gap would narrow to four hours with London and five with the continent. A call booked for a European afternoon would land an hour earlier on American desks. Flight schedules, market open times and shift handoffs for companies running both sides of the Atlantic would need a fresh look every winter.

Could a US Deal Finally Push Brussels to Decide?

Some European advocates think so. A U.S. move to permanent daylight time carries no legal weight in Brussels. Campaigners who have watched the EU’s own proposal gather dust since 2019 say it could remove a favorite excuse for inaction and build fresh political pressure at home.

I’m convinced that if Daylight Saving Time is abolished in the US, it will have a big impact on whether people will really consider doing the same here in Europe.

Jørgen Bak, chairman of the Danish Association Against Daylight Saving Time, made that case in comments carried by nearly four million consultation responses that first pushed the European Commission to act back in 2018. Most of those respondents wanted the twice yearly switch gone.

The European Parliament already has its answer on record. What is missing is the Council, where 27 governments still cannot agree on which clock to keep.

Who Wins and Who Worries

The House vote split more by coastline than by party. Lawmakers from Florida, Louisiana and New Jersey backed the bill heavily. Opposition clustered in the Midwest and in farm country, where early daylight carries more daily weight than a lit-up evening.

• Coastal and tourism-heavy states – Florida Republicans argue brighter evenings mean more time at local restaurants and shops after work.
• Farmers and outdoor workers – Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, has warned that construction workers, farmers and other early risers “might go three, four or even five hours in the morning without seeing the sun.”
• Sleep researchers – the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the main professional group for U.S. sleep physicians, warns of chronic sleep deprivation and more pedestrian deaths under permanent daylight time.
• Parents of young children – Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said “millions of Americans will wake up during the winter months in complete darkness” if the bill becomes law.
• European exporters and call centers – firms coordinating shifts, deliveries or trading windows with U.S. partners would need to redraw winter schedules around a narrower time gap.

None of these groups are new to this argument. What has changed is how close Congress has come to actually settling it.

A Century of Springing Forward and Falling Back

This fight has never stayed settled for long, on either side of the Atlantic.

1. 1918: Congress passes the Standard Time Act, codifying U.S. time zones and a wartime daylight saving period meant to save fuel.
2. 1974: A year round daylight saving experiment begins on January 6 to conserve energy during the oil crisis. Congress repeals it on October 27 after complaints about children walking to school in the dark.
3. 2018: Marco Rubio introduces the first Sunshine Protection Act in the Senate, the same year the European Commission proposes scrapping the EU’s own clock change.
4. March 2019: The European Parliament votes to end the EU’s biannual switch by 2021.
5. March 2022: The U.S. Senate passes the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent. The House never takes it up, and it expires at year’s end.
6. 2021 to now: The EU’s own reform sits stalled in the Council, with member states still split on which permanent time to choose.
7. July 14, 2026: The House passes a reintroduced Sunshine Protection Act, 308 to 117, with Trump’s public backing.

Each attempt failed for a different reason: energy politics in the 1970s, school bus safety then and now, single market anxiety in Brussels. The pattern repeats anyway. Broad public irritation with the clock change, and a legislature that cannot agree on the replacement.

The Senate’s Murky Road Ahead

The House vote is only half the job. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, has not committed to a floor vote and told reporters his central concern is “optionality for states.”

Senator Cotton remains the most vocal holdout. A Senate version of the bill stalled last year after Cotton objected to fast tracking it by unanimous consent. A senior Hill aide says his concerns have not changed, and that senators from both parties have voted against similar language in the Senate Commerce Committee.

A rival bill offers the opposite fix. It would lock the country onto standard time instead, an approach sleep doctors and pediatric groups prefer because it keeps clocks closer to the natural solar day. Neither chamber has settled which version, if either, actually becomes law.

For now, nothing changes. Clocks in Washington and across Europe will fall back on schedule this November, exactly as they have for decades.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Would Permanent Daylight Saving Time Actually Start?

Newsweek has reported that permanent daylight saving time would take effect on December 1 under the bill’s own provisions, if the Senate passes it and Trump signs it. Until then, the country keeps switching clocks on the usual schedule, including the fall change back to standard time this coming November.

Is the European Union Still Planning to End Its Own Clock Changes?

Not with any real momentum. In 2025, the European Commission signaled it might simply withdraw its 2018 proposal rather than keep pushing it, part of a wider simplification drive, though the Commission’s move to formally withdraw the proposal still needs sign off from the European Parliament and national governments. Unless a new plan appears, the EU’s twice yearly clock change stays written into Directive 2000/84/EC.

What Is the Sunshine for Our Kids Act?

It is a rival bill that would make standard time permanent instead of daylight time, backed by Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon and Pat Harrigan. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has thrown its support behind this approach, arguing it fits the body’s natural clock better than year round daylight time does.

How Many States Have Already Passed Their Own Permanent-Time Laws?

Nineteen states have enacted laws ready to switch to year round daylight saving time the moment Congress allows it, a figure NBC News attributes to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Those state laws stay dormant until the federal Uniform Time Act itself changes.