COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Clocks are turning back slightly earlier this fall for the end of daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Nov. 2, closing the annual period when U.S. clocks “spring forward” in March and then “fall back” in November. Yes, this means we get an extra hour of sleep when the clock remains in the secondhand position for another hour.
This year’s time change is one day earlier than last year’s, and is the second-earliest possible date for the end of daylight saving. The annual period always concludes on the first Sunday of November, with the earliest possible date being Nov. 1.
The U.S. is once again turning clocks back while lawmakers and President Donald Trump have revived calls to “lock the clock” and observe daylight saving time permanently. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) gathered the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in April for a hearing to examine whether the U.S. should abandon the biannual tradition.
“This hearing is an excellent opportunity to examine a thoughtful and rational approach to how we manage time,” Cruz said during his opening remarks. “Whether we lock the clock on standard time year-round or daylight saving time, let’s put our health, the economy, and well-being first and embrace a sensible approach to time management.”
The effort garnered the attention of Trump, who took to social media the day after the hearing to express his support for ending the biannual tradition. The president’s comment came after he called it “a 50/50 issue” in March, saying “it’s hard to get excited about it.”
“The House and Senate should push hard for more daylight at the end of a day,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April. “Very popular and, most importantly, no more changing of the clocks, a big inconvenience and, for our government, a very costly event.”
Cruz’s hearing came after Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reintroduced bipartisan legislation earlier this year to keep time permanently “forward,” meaning clocks would not be set back in November. Named the “Sunshine Protection Act,” the bill’s passage would mean later sunsets in the winter but also later sunrises.
For example, the sun rises around 7:15 a.m. and sets around 4:30 p.m. on the first day of winter in New York. The act would change sunrise to 8:15 a.m. and sunset to 5:30 p.m.
While Ohio is among more than two dozen states that have previously pushed to observe daylight saving permanently, the state’s effort is curtailed until federal law changes. Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, states can change to standard time but not daylight saving, which requires a change to federal law to transition to perpetual daylight saving.
Ohio’s House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill in December 2023 to urge the U.S. Congress to pass a previous version of the Sunshine Protection Act. The measure was under consideration in Ohio’s Senate, but only received one hearing last June and never passed out of the General Government Committee.
State Sen. Kyle Koehler (R-Springfield) reintroduced a similar concurrent resolution earlier this year that also urges the U.S. Congress to make daylight saving time permanent. The resolution has been assigned to the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee, where it could receive hearings open for public testimony.
