By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 13, 2026 – After decades of failed attempts, Congress is once again taking aim at one of America’s most debated annual rituals: changing the clocks twice a year.
The US House is expected to vote this week on the Sunshine Protection Act, legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country and eliminate the spring and fall clock changes that have frustrated Americans for generations. The House Rules Committee is taking up the measure Monday before it moves to the House floor.
The current legislation, sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Florida, has advanced farther than several competing proposals that also seek to end the twice-yearly time changes. While some lawmakers favor permanent standard time, Buchanan’s bill would keep the nation on daylight saving time year-round, unless states choose to opt out, as Arizona and Hawaii already do.
The proposal has gained unusual momentum this year after clearing the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 48-1 vote in May. A companion bill sponsored by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, has already passed the Senate Commerce Committee with bipartisan support.
President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind the effort, calling the twice-yearly clock changes a “ridiculous, twice yearly production” that wastes time and money.
For Alaska, where daylight varies more dramatically than anywhere else in the nation, the change would be especially noticeable.
Under permanent daylight saving time, winter sunrises would occur about an hour later than they do now, and sunsets would also shift an hour later. During winter, Alaskans would experience darker mornings, although residents would gain additional evening daylight.
Backers argue that eliminating clock changes would reduce sleep disruption, workplace accidents and traffic crashes associated with the twice-yearly time shifts. They also point to potential economic benefits from more evening daylight, particularly for outdoor recreation, tourism, retail businesses and restaurants.
Among the more prominent critics is Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, who has argued that permanent daylight saving time would create unnecessarily dark winter mornings and pose safety concerns for children walking to school.
The debate is not new.
Congress briefly adopted year-round daylight saving time during the 1973 energy crisis, but the experiment quickly became unpopular because of dark winter mornings and was repealed within months. A more recent version of the Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate unanimously in 2022 but never received a vote in the House.
Alaska lawmakers have repeatedly examined the issue as well. More than a dozen bills have been introduced over the past several decades proposing various approaches to ending the clock changes or shifting the state’s time observance. None have become law, largely because federal law currently limits states’ options.
If Congress approves the Sunshine Protection Act and it is signed into law, states would still have the ability to decide whether to remain on permanent daylight saving time or opt out in favor of permanent standard time.
Even if the House approves the bill this week, the Senate would still need to pass the legislation, where opposition from several senators and competing proposals favoring permanent standard time could once again stall the effort.
For now, Americans—including Alaskans—will continue to change their clocks twice a year. But after years of false starts, Congress appears closer than it has been in years to finally settling the question of whether the nation should simply leave the clocks alone.
6 thoughts on “Congress prepares vote on permanent daylight saving time, with major implications for Alaska”
Actually, the time change just disrupts the entire workforce of the US, but up here, it matters very little. The daylight changes enough during the year that sunlight or the lack thereof doesn’t tell anyone what time it might be. Daylight savings time should have been repealed after WWII, and the fact that it didn’t is indicative of the fact that Congress and the Senate have been dysfunctional at least since then.
That is a beautiful photo with this story. May I ask where the photo was taken?
The Sun will still rise in the east and set in the west. Daylight savings time was a dumb idea then and still is a dumb idea. Get on with it and stop wringing your hands over it. And, don’t drag out the kids as an excuse to not do it. What a phony.
We should obviously be on standard time, but if they can pass the bill and allow states to choose to opt out of the stupid time change and thus remain on standard time, then pass the bill. Even with our dysfunctional and inept Legislature a year or two on daylight savings time should get enough people upset enough to go to the obvious and only choice to go on to permanent standard time.
Alaska would be better served by returning to the pre-1983 time zone structure. Today, at my little hovel in Los Anchorage, noon hits about 1:36 p.m. I don’t play golf or softball after work any more and, as I get older, I have far less appreciation for the sun blaring through my west facing bedroom blinds at 10:30 p.m.
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Alas, there is a lobby out there that cares not a wit for the sun’s zenith hitting its peak at — NOON! They don’t open the doors to their stores or banks until 9:00 or 10:00 and they’re among the first to head out for a round of golf at 5 p.m.
Just a reminder, we moved to PERMANENT Daylight time in 1983 in order to keep the state capital in Juneau, which used to be TWO HOURS ahead of the bulk of the state’s population, running between Fairbanks and Kodiak. They moved backwards an hour, so we really are on what used to be Yukon Time (where only Yakutat was placed, in a very narrow corridor). So, even when we drop back to “standard time” in November, it is still Daylight time according to our 1983 configuration. To stay on Daylight time all year would be a full TWO HOURS off kilter with the sun in 1983. The solution is to do what Arizona & Hawaii do: keep our own time, according to our demographic and cultural necessities. We used to be on the same time zone as Hawaii, but that was messed up in 1983. They remain on true standard Alaska-Hawaii Time, as it was called then. In the summer, we are a full two hours ahead of Honolulu. Oh, and did I forget? We used to move the clocks back and forward in early October and late April. Our “standard” time is anything but standard. It lasts a mere 4 months now. If you are confused, it certainly is reasonable, considering the mess the federal gov’t makes with just about everything.