Trump and Musk weigh in about daylight savings time
Elon Musk ran a unscientific poll on X that revealed how some feel about a proposed end to daylight saving time.
Disrupted sleep patterns. Annoying clock resets. Daylight saving time can be a hassle, and politicians have reacted by calling for the ritual to be eliminated.
The political debate has been around for decades. Lately, both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have weighed in and legislation is pending in Congress to do away with the twice-yearly time change.
Switching to daylight saving time in the spring and standard time in the fall generates strong opinions, but has proven difficult to change.
Here’s what to know about the political debate.
Does Trump want to end daylight saving time?
Trump seemed to come out in favor of doing away with the time change in a December social media post.
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!” Trump wrote. “Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
But on Thursday, Trump seemed less eager to make the change. Addressing the debate while signing executive orders, Trump called daylight saving time “very much a fifty-fifty issue.”
“It’s something I can do, but a lot of people like it one way, a lot of people like it the other way,” Trump said.
Daylight saving time results in the sun rising and setting an hour later in the day. That has implications for morning and evening activities, as Trump noted.
“I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don’t want to take their kids to school in the dark,” Trump said.
Musk conducts a poll
Billionaire Elon Musk jumped into the daylight saving time debate on Wednesday with a poll on X, the social media platform he owns.
Musk asked X users what they preferred if the time change is canceled, an hour earlier or later.
More than 1.3 million people responded, with 58% saying later and 42% saying earlier.
Where does this stand in Congress?
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., introduced legislation in January to “lock the clock” and end the time change.
The legislation would maintain daylight saving time year round. The bill has struggled to attract enough support, though. It cleared the Senate in 2022 but never passed the House.
Florida leads the way
In 2018, Florida became the first state to pass legislation — the Sunshine Protection Act — to remain on daylight saving time permanently. No more changing clocks forward or back.
The Sunshine Act was approved by Scott, who was Florida’s governor at the time.
What other states have considered this?
In 2018, Florida became the first state to pass legislation — the Sunshine Protection Act — to remain on daylight saving time permanently. No more changing clocks forward or back.
Almost every state, since 2015, has considered multiple time zone bills, but none of significance passed until 2018, when Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe DST, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Over the next six years, “20 states have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change, and in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation.”
This article was originally published by a www.usatoday.com . Read the Original article here. .