WASHINGTON — A bill that would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide cleared the U.S. House this week, but it may run into a familiar roadblock in the Senate: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act by a 308-117 vote Tuesday, sending the measure to the Senate with the backing of President Donald Trump, who has said he will “work very hard” to see the bill signed into law. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., would end the twice-yearly clock change and put the country permanently on daylight saving time, with states allowed to opt out before the law takes effect.
Congressional aides told Semafor they expect Cotton to block the bill, and a senior Hill aide said the senator plans to ask Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., not to bring the legislation to the floor. Cotton, a Republican, single-handedly stalled the Senate version of the bill in October when he objected to a unanimous consent request to fast-track its passage.
In a lengthy floor speech delivered Oct. 28, Cotton argued that locking the clocks on daylight saving time would push winter sunrises to “an absurdly late hour” and force schoolchildren and early-morning workers to start their days in darkness.
“For many Arkansans, permanent Daylight Savings Time would mean the sun wouldn’t rise until after 8:00 or even 8:30 a.m. during the dead of winter,” Cotton said. “Three months out of the year, kids in towns like Bentonville, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith would start school ahead of the sun.”
The effect would be similar in southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas, where the latest winter sunrises — currently a little after 7:15 a.m. — would shift past 8:15 a.m. under year-round daylight saving time.
Cotton pointed to the last time Congress tried the experiment. In late 1973, amid the energy crisis, lawmakers adopted year-round daylight saving time as a two-year trial. The change quickly proved unpopular as Americans woke to dark winter mornings, and reports of children struck by cars while walking to school in the dark fueled a backlash. Congress repealed the law and restored standard time in October 1974, less than a year after the change took effect.
“It’s said that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” Cotton said. “And that’s what would happen if Congress passes the so-called ‘Sunshine Protection Act.'”
Cotton also cited health concerns, noting that medical organizations including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Medical Association have called for permanent standard time — not permanent daylight saving time — arguing the body’s internal clock aligns more closely with standard time.
The senator acknowledged he did not object when the Senate passed an earlier version of the bill by unanimous consent in 2022, calling it a mistake born of miscommunication with his staff. That bill later died in the House.
“I take full responsibility for this mistake,” Cotton said, “though the search for someone else to blame is actively ongoing.”
Supporters of the bill, including Senate sponsor Rick Scott, R-Fla., argue that ending the clock change would simplify life for Americans, boost winter economic activity and give families more usable evening daylight. Buchanan said in a statement that Americans are “tired of the biannual time change” and called the bill a commonsense reform.
Cotton countered that the economic benefits would flow mainly to a handful of industries and regions — outdoor entertainment venues, resorts and states on the eastern edges of time zones — while the costs of dark winter mornings would fall on the rest of the country.
Nineteen states, including Arkansas’ neighbors Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi, have passed legislation that would adopt year-round daylight saving time if Congress allows it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. None of those laws can take effect unless federal law changes.
Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, states may opt out of daylight saving time entirely — as Arizona and Hawaii have — but cannot adopt it year-round.
Unless the bill moves before then, clocks will fall back to standard time Nov. 1.
“I therefore oppose the Sunshine Protection Act,” Cotton said, “and will always oppose any effort to adopt Daylight Savings Time year-round.”
