Changes Ahead for Daylight Savings Time?

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Stephen R. Rolandi
June 16, 2025

“I say it is impossible that so sensible a people, under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome, and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known, that they might have had as much pure light of the sun for nothing.” — Benjamin Franklin, “Essay on Daylight Saving” Letter to the Editor, The Journal of Paris (April 26, 1784)

Did you ever wonder why we in the United States move our clocks back one hour in the fall and advance them one hour later in the spring time (“spring forward, fall back”) to reflect Standard Time (ST) for the fall and winter months of the year and Daylight Saving Time (DST) for the spring and summer months?

For as long as I can remember, my parents would tell me and my two brothers that they found it a little hard to adjust to the change in time during the fall and spring seasons and then back again the following change in seasons.

Benjamin Franklin, one of our nation’s founding fathers, is sometimes credited as the person who invented daylight saving time, but he only suggested in an anonymous letter to the editor of The Journal of Paris that if Parisians could wake up earlier in the summer they would economize on candle and oil usage. Mr. Franklin, at the time American Minister to France, did not propose changing the clocks.

Currently, the Federal and numerous state governments are actively considering and debating legislative bills to replace the clock change with either permanent Daylight Saving Time (pDST) or permanent Standard Time (pST).

As there are a host of public policy issues as well as health and societal implications associated with a contemplated change in either DST or ST, I thought it would be an opportune time to take a closer look at these proposals in this article for PA Times.

Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time – Defined

Standard Time (ST) refers to the synchronization of clocks within a geographical region (time zone) to a single time standard rather than a local mean time standard.

ST, when it was largely adopted during the 19th century, solidified the concept of halving the world (globe) into the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere with one prime meridian replacing the various prime meridians that had previously been used. This was important for scheduled steamships and trains, the primary modes of transportation in the 19th century, which required such standardization.

By contrast, Daylight Saving Time (DST), also referred to as Daylight Time (USA and Canada) and summer time (UK, European Union and other nations) is the advancing of clocks to make better use of the longer daylight available during the summer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time. In practice, DST sets clocks one hour ahead of ST, usually in a spring month—for example, last year (2024) in the United States, DST ran from March 10, 2024 to November 3, 2024. This year (2025), DST runs from March 9, 2025 to November 9, 2025.

Brief History of Daylight Saving Time

The first implementation of DST occurred in the municipality of Port Arthur, Northern Ontario, Canada (now part of Thunder Bay) in 1908, but only locally and not nationally. The first nation-wide implementation of DST occurred during World War I in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a way to conserve consumption of coal during that conflict. The UK and its allies, Russia and neutral European nations soon followed.

DST was implemented during the administration of Woodrow Wilson by the Standard Time Act of 1918 as a wartime measure to conserve energy when the United States entered the First World War. Year-round DST (“War Time”) was again implemented during the Second World War. With the war’s conclusion, local jurisdictions in the United States were free to choose if and when to observe DST until the Uniform Time Act was signed into law in 1966. It should be noted that Congress passed a modification of this law in 1973, in response to the energy crisis, to allow for a permanent DST during the 1974 school year.

However, there were numerous complaints of school children going to school in the dark as well as people commuting and starting their workday in the pitch darkness of winter. Subsequently, the law was repealed in 1975. In 1986, the United States began observing a seven-month DST to benefit the golf industry and manufacturers of barbecue equipment (claiming economic activity between $200 and $400 million).

Since 2005, the USA has been observing nearly 8 months of DST. Today, approximately 40 nations around the world including the European Union utilize seasonal DST.

Currently, however, the original purpose of utilizing DST—conserving energy—has been called into question. There is now a debate as to whether or not the United States should have one standard time clock. Public opinion in the United States is somewhat divided on this issue. In a recent survey, approximately 75 percent of Americans surveyed favor one clock standard throughout the year. A poll conducted by Monmouth University a few years ago also found that 44 percent preferred year-round DST and 13 percent preferred PST. Elected officials are also divided on this issue.

Opposition to changing the clocks twice a year broadly takes the following forms:

• A preference for year-round daylight saving time (pDST)
• A preference for year-round standard time (pST)
• A desire to “lock the clock” regardless of whether the result is year-round daylight or year-round standard time

Some nations, notably Argentina, Belarus, Iceland, Morocco, Syria, Turkey and Paraguay, have implemented one standard clock, e.g. permanent daylight saving time (pDST). In September 2018, the European Commission proposed to end seasonal clock changes to take effect in 2021, but this measure was not approved by the European Union.

In our country, the Senate passed the Uniform Time Act in 2022, which would set the start date of DST as the first Sunday in November, but the proposal failed to pass in the House of Representatives; a similar measure was refiled in the Senate by then U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) in 2023, without action by the House.

The bill was recently introduced again earlier this year with the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 (H.R. 139) by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Florida); the bill was referred for further consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill would make Daylight Saving Time the new permanent standard time. States with areas exempt from DST may choose the Standard Time option for those areas. This particular bill may have a chance of passage in both chambers. President Trump has also expressed interest in having one uniform clock with permanent DST. If this bill were to become law, how implementation will be achieved remains to be seen.

Conclusion

In my view, there is an efficiency argument to be made for one standard clock option, either DST or ST. However, like most proposed pieces of legislation, there is buy-in required by affected interest groups, constituencies and states/congressional districts. This proposal is no different. Time will tell. Stay tuned.

Post Script:

For further reading and research, you may be interested in the following works:

• Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, by Michael Downing (2009)
• Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, by David S. Prerau (2005)
• “Debunking myths about daylight saving time: ten things everyone should know about the benefits of permanent standard time,” by Vidya Krishnan and Karen G. Johnson, in Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (2023)
• One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity, by Ian R. Bartky (2007)

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Author: Stephen R. Rolandi is a graduate of New York University and its Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. His career has spanned the Federal, state and municipal levels of government, as well as several not-for-profit organizations. Currently an adjunct professor of public administration at Pace University and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, he has held numerous leadership positions in ASPA. He is a frequent guest speaker, writer and commentator on public affairs issues affecting the United States and New York State. Professor Rolandi can be reached at: [email protected] or [email protected] or 212.237.8000 (office))

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