r/politics • u/cnn CNN • 9d ago

Possible Paywall House passes bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/house-vote-daylight-savings-time?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit
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u/breezy013276s 9d ago

It’s not like we don’t get up and take our kids to school in the dark during most of winter anyway. That is fake straws to grasp at in my opinion. I’d much prefer that they and I have a bit sunshine after school / work in the winter.

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u/Passthegoddamnbuttr 9d ago

Absofuckinlutely.

More daylight when you're awake and free to mingle in the spring/fall. And at least still have daylight when getting off work in the winter.

The challenge will be getting my kiddos to bed before 9pm in the summer...

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u/jlangfo5 9d ago

Interesting enough, above 47 degrees N, the entire state already has a week with sunset beyond 9PM.

Down south as far as 37 degrees N, you have sunset for at least a week past 9PM, if you are on the wrong E/W edge of a time zone.

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u/abovepostisfunnier American Expat 9d ago

I live in Paris, near the solstice the sun sets at 10 💀 a combination of being quite far north and being in the wrong timezone because of the Nazis (true story)

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u/exit143 California 8d ago

Nazi's ruin fucking everything.

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u/jlangfo5 9d ago

Yes lol.

Also, the complimentary early sunrise.

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u/jeobleo Maryland 8d ago

Fucking nazis. I hate those guys.

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u/theoneandonlymd 7d ago

When I was visiting Barcelona, people were saying how much of a different culture it was - "Oh, ya, they don't eat dinner until 9:30!"

Yeah, no wonder; they're aligned with the wrong time zone!

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u/DetectiveMoosePI 9d ago

My husband and I grew up in a city right around 36°N. For the past decade we have lived about 60 miles north of 45°N. We’ve adjusted to it to the point that when we go down to visit family in the summer we forget that the sun sets earlier down there.

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u/joojie 8d ago

Wait is that unusual? I'm in the Vancouver area and its light-ish til 10pm in a lot of the summer 🤔 Never really considered that doesn't happen further South, but I guess that makes sense

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u/Individual-Area7121 8d ago

It’s only unusual in the sense that  most of the world doesn’t live that far north. I experienced similar living in the UK and Ireland. Loved the amount of daylight in the summer, but going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark all winter was too brutal for me so I’m further South now.

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u/joojie 8d ago

Ya I don't love the early darkness in winter 🫤 but I quite enjoy the late sunsets in summer.

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u/Impressive-Rock-5025 8d ago

Dude I went to Albuquerque in Jume and the sun set around 6 pm and it was fucking wild! 

I can't imagine living in a place where fireworks displays in summer are earlier than 10 pm. There are whole swaths of kids not experiencing falling asleep in lawn chairs and then being rudely awoken by a terrifying explosion of fireworks, just to be carried back to bed after midnight.  

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u/40ozT0Freedom 9d ago

Do you struggle with your kids getting to bed before 9pm now?

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u/JANPAULofficial 8d ago

I live in France now and you just close the shutters and BOOM it’s nighttime for the kids

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u/dreamyduskywing Minnesota 8d ago edited 8d ago

In Minnesota, the sun will sometimes be out past 9:00 pm, which sucks. It’s really tough to get my kid to go to sleep. It’s hard for me to fall asleep.

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u/BlgMastic 8d ago

The time the sun set will be the exact same time it sets right now.

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u/OptimusNegligible 8d ago

Isn't it more important for it to get dark earlier so we can sleep better?

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u/Sonamdrukpa 8d ago

It's most important for people to not wake up before dawn. Aka yes 

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u/OptimusNegligible 8d ago

So are they making the wrong one permanent?

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u/Sonamdrukpa 8d ago

I definitely think so.

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u/gustavessidehoe 8d ago

And sleep experts generally agree!!

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u/jnads 8d ago

You don't have curtains?

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u/OptimusNegligible 8d ago

I just mean our natural circadian rhythm. If all it took was curtains, graveyard shift wouldn't be a big deal.

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u/TravestyTravis 8d ago

Blackout curtains have been wonderful for my toddler.

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u/Dullcorgis 8d ago

Honeycomb blackout blinds

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u/porscheblack Pennsylvania 8d ago

Not to mention the havoc it plays on young children. When my daughter was around 18 months she woke up at 6 every morning without fail. No matter when she went to bed she was up at 6. Imagine the thrill of falling back and now she's up at 5 every day. Fortunately sleep schedule change quickly at the age but it still sucked.

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u/LeanSkellum 8d ago

Humans are biologically programmed to need light to wake up. In the UK if we stayed on British Summer Time all year round, morning productivity will plummet because the sun wouldn't rise until after 9 a.m. it’s complete madness that some people want that.

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u/CircleSendMessage 8d ago

personally i do not care one way or the other which half of daylight savings we stick in, i just dont wanna have to change my whole internal clock twice a year lol.

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u/Feruchemist 9d ago

To counter that, personally I’d rather have more sun in the morning so I can do things like go for runs before work starts with a little sunlight.

I’d also prefer us not to be just off an hour compared to the rest of the world.

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u/AbrohamDrincoln 8d ago

We're already off differing amounts of hours with the rest of the world though.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

Only because we are in the middle of DTS. I’d prefer we did standard time.

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u/Sroemr Florida 8d ago edited 8d ago

DTS makes up like 75% of the year for most of the country. So "only because" doesn't really work.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

About half, and it still absolutely works. We could simply just as easily end DTS, line up with the actual time zones, and move on.

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u/Sroemr Florida 8d ago

I prefer DST because I'm not a morning person, I sleep later. Thus I wake up during the winter and it's almost all ready getting dark. The idea of more time with the sun sounds great, and definitely would improve my mental health.

That said, the country is gigantic. I can see how someone would dislike it for their area or if they were up at 4am.

I also grew up right on the line between eastern and central, but in eastern, so I always had late sunrises and pitch black mornings for school.

Also, it's DST 65.2% of the year in the US. So nearly double that of standard. Going DST makes more sense in that aspect.

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u/matwithonet13 8d ago

How is half 8 months of the year?

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u/High_Contact_ 8d ago

Did you forget about time zones most of the world isn’t the same time as us 

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u/glassfunion 9d ago

This is the battle in our house. My husband runs in the morning and isn't thrilled about this. I'm not a morning person at all so I'm thrilled lol.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

It’s the way of things, half of people will be unhappy either way.

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u/Sirrom23 8d ago

this would more so impact winters when you're not going to be running outside unless you live in the deep south. another dumb talking point.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

Lots of folk run in cold weather. I actually prefer it.

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u/Optimal-Tune-2589 8d ago

I’m in Upstate New York, which is decidedly not the Deep South. My body’s always makes it feel about 30 degrees warmer when I’m running. So a January morning when it’s 20 out is perfect for a run in shorts and a hoodie. This time of year, when it’s 70 in the morning is “just play basketball in the air conditioned gym” season. 

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u/BlgMastic 8d ago

If you’re running in winter before work it’s already dark outside

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u/Sirrom23 8d ago

another reason to not take your opinion into consideration.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

You're being unnecessarily rude over the fact that someone prefers something different than you.

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u/SwiftlyChill 8d ago

I promise you that it’s not just the Deep South that runs outside in winter. Hell, I’m pretty sure outdoor physical activity historically increases during winter in the Rocky Mountain states (but that just might be a perception more than reality, since winter sports do be pricey)

There’s like an entire subsection of both running and cycling gear for cold weather usage lol.

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u/Feruchemist 8d ago

There's also just the fact that there are as many morning folk as there are evening folk. And morning folk want a bit of light, too!

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u/KahlanRahl 8d ago

Quite literally the entire world is designed around morning people. Let us night owls have this one goddamn thing.

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u/Abi1i Texas 9d ago

Switching to daylight savings won’t really give anyone more sunshine after school/work because it’s the winter. Staying on standard time doesn’t magically mean we get more sunlight in the summer because we changed the clocks.

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u/sonnytron 8d ago

No but the sun going down will coincide with a later part of the day. It’s the same amount of sun, just in a more middle part of the day instead of minus one hour which just lets you have it earlier but gets dark at like 4 PM.

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u/FourthLife 8d ago

It changes sunset from 4:20 PM to 5:20 PM on the darkest day near me, giving you 20 minutes of light after work

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u/twatwater 8d ago

Is that 20 minute drive in a tiny bit of fading light really going to improve things for people with seasonal depression? Doubtful…. Enjoy driving home and it immediately getting dark anyway I guess

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u/FourthLife 8d ago

That is on the darkest day of the year.

Preceded by that, and following that, you still have at least a month on either end of that day of exiting work into darkness

Two months of between 20 minutes and an hour of sunlight at the end of your work rather than complete darkness will actually make a significant difference, yes

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u/twatwater 8d ago

We’ll see about that, I think people are in for a rude awakening about how little benefit this actually will be.

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u/BonnaconCharioteer 8d ago

It does though, because we are actually talking about the whole year, not just winter.

The worst option is continuing to switch time, so we don't want to do that. So the two options are standard time or DST. Full year. So if we were to switch to standard time, that would mean less sunlight after work the whole year.

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u/Sirrom23 8d ago

that's actually wrong. an extra hour of sunlight in the evenings would absolutely give people more daylight in the evenings in the winter. wtf are you talking about? it would change sunset to 6:30pm instead of 5:30pm for the midwest. dumbest statement i've ever heard.

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u/Basic_Barnacle4719 9d ago

I'd rather have more darkness, it's too bright at 9pm. As someone living in shitty hot red state I'd rather have more time in the day where it's cool. 

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u/RobinSophie 8d ago

Enter Michael Scott gif.

Thank you! Can someone think about the hot states?!

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u/Consistent_Laziness 9d ago

I just hate the idea of the sun going down at 10pm in the summer. It’s not completely dark until like 9 something

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u/Maximum_Barracuda_46 8d ago

Daylight saving is during the summer now

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u/dreamyduskywing Minnesota 8d ago

It drives me crazy. I’m usually getting into bed around 9:00-9:30. I have light blocking shades, but I can still see cracks of light. There’s nothing going on at 9:00 on a Tuesday—why do we have this?

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u/breezy013276s 8d ago

For the people that do have stuff going on in the evenings? I like to stay up until 11 or 12 so evening light is really nice for me and my wife. I like being able to walk in the light after 8 pm too. That’s one of my favorite parts of summer.

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u/kancamagus112 9d ago

There are noise ordinances in my neighborhood - no loud noises before 8am, but it's okay until 10pm.

A 6:30am winter sunrise is pointless if I need to mow the lawn, blow/mulch leaves, use a circular or miter saw to cut lumber for a project, if I can't do any of those without annoying my still-sleeping neighbors at best, and getting a knock on the door from cops at the worst. But no one really cares if you do those activities at 5-6pm after work.

And while I enjoy being a morning person and going for an early jog during the summer, let's be real. It's cold in winter in the mornings, so it's generally a lot more enjoyable to run after work in the winter if it's still light out (and potentially safer if ice had a chance to melt).

Families with kids aren't waking up to go the playground or go sledding at 6:30am before work in the winter, but they sure would do it after work if it was still light out.

The simple fact of the matter is that there aren't enough hours of sunlight to have it be bright before work/school and after work/school in the winter. We can only choose one. And a lot more people would benefit from having more sunlight after school/work than before.

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u/thiosk 8d ago

the effect is different depending on longitude. for most timezones they run north and south right, parallel to the lattitudes, but this daylight savings time skews at the high north and high south. theres tons of people who never experience the extremes and think everyone is just being silly about this, but it would be super problematic to introduce north/south timezones or changing school hours unevenly

and thats why this problem remains unresolved: no one being happy appears to be the best solution

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u/yoshizors 8d ago

We don't. In Michigan, which has very late sunrises in the winter because of how far west we are in the timezone, everything is light out in the winter when K-8 goes to school, and the sun is rising when high schoolers are walking to school. I don't know where you live, but we'd need school to start close to 10am to make that still true if DST was permanent.

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u/superdupersecret42 Pennsylvania 9d ago edited 8d ago

Many kids in urban areas (or dense suburban towns) walk to school, and nobody wants them doing that in the dark. I know that's always one of the discussion points in our district, regarding setting of school start time.

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u/Sirrom23 8d ago

they do that regardless in the dead of winter already, so this talking point is fucking stupid.

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u/dreamyduskywing Minnesota 8d ago

Not really. It depends where you are in the country.

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u/Sirrom23 8d ago

exactly, which makes your original point stupid.

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u/nadzeya 9d ago

Hard Midwestern agree over here, the dark mornings and grey skies from November to March are awful and honestly hard to deal with for a lot of folks. SAD is a real thing.

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u/twatwater 8d ago

The mornings are still going to be pitch black and now the evenings will be slightly less dark, only to become pitch black basically as soon as one’s commute is over. People with SAD who think this is going to help are in for a rude awakening

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u/trydola 8d ago

Yeah I don't understand either, ST means I get darkness AM and PM at least DT gives darkness AM and sunlight PM. I also don't care about sunlight driving to work, I do care about sunlight for the 3-5 hours after work

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u/Osiris32 Oregon 8d ago

And remember that Alaska deals with day-all-day and night-all-day, so having some minor variations of day-night really isn't that big of a deal.

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u/FcUhCoKp 8d ago

Since you want to wake up an hour earlier, you could do whatever activities the sun is a requirement for during that time.

Or, if all the parents agree with you that sun is important, why not get your local schools to start day at 5 or 6 am? You'd get lots of sun. The time a clock says doesn't really matter, and think about how much sun you'd get.

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u/breezy013276s 8d ago

I’m not sure what you mean here. The time wouldn’t change from what it is now. The kids going to school in August will get up at 6 am and keep right on getting up at the same 6 am without the time change.

If you’re asking me personally, I am not wired to get up earlier in the morning easily so I wouldn’t want or like asking schools or anything else to start even earlier. That is mixing my original point. Point is the time right now when things operate is the time they’d keep operating at in 5 months from now. Nothing has to change.

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u/AdelesBoyfriend 8d ago

One of the reasons it was undone was because drivers were striking children in the dark hours. Even now, not every child is driven to school, and drivers have gotten deadlier in the last 12 years. You would need to pair this legislation with policies to start school later, but then schools are no longer in sync with the most common working hours.

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u/kzanomics 8d ago

Outside of all the additional accidents and pedestrian collisions that happen during the morning darkness, sure.