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House GOP leadership is ratcheting up pressure on its Senate counterparts to pass legislation making daylight saving time permanent after President Donald Trump called on Congress to act.
The House’s No. 2 leader, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital that “there’s no reason Americans should lose an hour of sunlight at the end of the day when more daylight means more time with our families, more activity for our businesses, and safer communities.”
“President Trump has been pushing to make daylight saving time permanent, and House Republicans delivered by overwhelmingly passing the Sunshine Protection Act. It’s a commonsense change and the Senate should take it up,” Scalise said.
HOUSE PASSES DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME REFORM AS TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR ENDING CLOCK CHANGE
The debate over the twice-annual changing of clocks has raged for decades in Washington.
Former President Richard Nixon’s administration led the country through a temporary 16-month trial of year-round daylight saving, but mounting public frustration forced the experiment to end six months early.
But the appetite for such a change appears to have returned. The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act in a bipartisan 308 to 117 vote in July, and Trump posted on Truth Social Friday, “A ridiculous Clock changing process that takes place twice a year, costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine.”
But the legislation is stalled in the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Politico there was “no clear path forward.”
TRUMP URGES SENATE TO PASS BILL MAKING DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERMANENT AFTER OVERWHELMING HOUSE VOTE
It’s created yet another rift between Trump and the Senate GOP majority, which he has clashed with on multiple fronts so far this term.
Trump’s frustration boiled over on the weekend when he targeted Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., one of the bill’s most prominent critics.
BATTLE OVER DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ERUPTS AS PUSH TO STOP CHANGING CLOCKS HITS SENATE WALL
“Almost everybody wants ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump said Saturday, sharing the senator’s cell phone number. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
Cotton responded, noting that Congress has tackled daylight saving time before, only to roll back the change shortly after.
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“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton said on X. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
It’s a unique issue that has divided lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. There are others who agree with Cotton, who argue that sending kids to school in their states in the dark is a no-go for making the change. But there are also those who support the option and believe that Trump’s added pressure could see the legislation resurface.
But that will have to contend with an already stacked lame-duck schedule that will be heavily dictated by the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.
“Look, obviously, Tom has very strong feelings, he’s made those known both publicly and within the conference, so I don’t expect that to change,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said. “You know, it’s something, obviously, the people of Alabama, for the most part, have said that they’re for.”
“And so, we’ll look for a pathway to have dialogue about it … but I would anticipate, given the president’s energy around it, that we’ll have that dialogue and debate when we get back,” she continued.
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