President Donald Trump is pushing Senate Republicans to take up a bill that would end the twice-a-year clock change, and he named Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas as the reason it hasn’t moved, saying the senator is blocking it “for reasons unknown.”
The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act 308-117 on July 14. The bill would keep the country on daylight saving time all year. The Senate received it a day later and sent it to the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Congress.gov records show.
Trump laid out his case in a lengthy Truth Social post, calling the clock change “ridiculous” and saying it costs the country “a fortune.” He gave the bill his own name, the “No More Changing of Clocks Act,” and wrote that most people want their extra hour of light in the evening, not the morning.
He wrote that studies show permanent evening daylight would bring down robbery and murder rates, cut car crashes and lower the risk of heart trouble, stroke and seasonal depression. He didn’t name the studies. None of those claims could be independently verified.
Trump also said later sunsets would make it safer for children walking home from school, trim energy bills and help sports, tourism, retail and restaurants. He wrote that PGA Commissioner Brian Rolapp needs the change because winter golf tournaments run out of daylight.
And he said resetting clocks in watchtowers and other hard-to-reach places costs cities and states millions.
Sleep doctors want the clock changes gone, too, but not this way. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine supports permanent standard time instead, arguing it is the healthier choice.
Trump pointed to the House vote as proof of bipartisan backing. Democrats were in fact nearly evenly divided, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voted no, Fox News reported.
Cotton’s reasons aren’t a secret. In an October 2025 Senate floor speech, he warned that year-round daylight saving time would push winter sunrises to an “absurdly late hour.” Schoolchildren and early-shift workers would bear the brunt, he said, especially in northern states and on the western edges of time zones.
He made that argument the same month he blocked Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., from passing the Senate version by unanimous consent. Cotton reminded colleagues of 1974, when Congress tried year-round daylight saving time and, by his account, public support dropped 30 percentage points in three months.
He hasn’t budged since the House vote. A senior Hill aide told NBC News that Cotton still has the same concerns and would ask Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to keep the bill off the floor.
He may have company. Semafor counted about a dozen other Commerce Committee senators, Republicans and Democrats, who voted against the measure in the past.
A shifting position
Trump hasn’t always landed in the same place. In 2019, he wrote that permanent daylight saving time was “O.K. with me.” Five years later, as president-elect, he posted that Republicans would work to get rid of daylight saving time altogether, calling it inconvenient and costly.
By 2025 he was calling it a “50-50 issue,” before urging Congress to push for more daylight later in the day. In May 2026, after the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill 48-1, he promised to work hard to get it signed.
The White House lobbied House members ahead of the vote, and Trump greeted the result as “Great News for America!”
The Senate has passed a version once already. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., got it through by unanimous consent in 2022, but the House never took it up.
Hawaii and most of Arizona stay on standard time all year. The House bill would let other states do the same if they opt out before it takes effect. First, though, it has to get through the Senate, and Trump has said he’ll sign it if it does.
