ORLANDO, Fla. – Get ready to fall back.
Daylight saving time ends this weekend, which means any clocks that don’t automatically switch over need to be changed. While you’re at it change the batteries in your smoke detector too.
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But wait, weren’t we going to get rid of daylight saving time, you ask? Wasn’t there a bill in Congress a few years back?
There was and there are several in Congress now, actually. But they seem to be going nowhere.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio once again introduced his Sunshine Protection Act in the U.S. Senate back in March. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican who represents parts of Hillsborough and Manatee counties, filed a companion bill in the U.S. House in March as well. Both have bipartisan support.
The bills would make daylight saving time permanent. That means in the spring when we “spring forward” an hour, that time would become the new standard time and we would no longer fall back.
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While nearly two dozen states support a permanent daylight saving time, they can’t make that change until the federal government allows them to do so. Florida’s legislature approved its own bill for a permanent daylight saving time in 2018.
However, according to Congress.gov, neither bill has made it past the introduction phase in the process.
H.R. 1279 was referred to the House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce, but from what we can tell the bill hasn’t been discussed by the subcommittee. That group is chaired by Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Tampa area Republican congressman. But he is not one of the 29 cosponsors of the bill. This is notable since most of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation has signed on as cosponsors.
There are two other bills to allow states to choose daylight saving time year-round, HR 1474 and HR 1561. Both bills were referred to the same House subcommittee and have not moved since.
News 6 has reached out to Buchanan and Bilirakis and is waiting to hear back.
Rubio’s version, S.582, is in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and has not been heard yet. It has 14 cosponsors in the Senate.
Rubio’s office sent along the following statement from the senator regarding the bill Tuesday:
“This bill has bipartisan support in Congress and the support of 22 states. I’m hopeful that we can finally get this done.”
A previous bill filed by Rubio was passed by the Senate in 2022, but never made it through the U.S. House. So the bill had to be refiled.
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