time travel

Everyone Agrees ‘Spring Forward’ Is the Worst

Photo: Randy Faris/Getty Images

It finally happened: The U.S. Senate agreed on something. (Unfortunately, it is not child care or the minimum wage.) On Tuesday, March 15, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight-saving time permanent. This would essentially mean staying on summer time (a.k.a. the time we just switched to) all year round and could permanently get rid of sunsets before 4 p.m. It might be the best thing the U.S. government has ever done.

Called the Sunshine Protection Act, the bill is a rare piece of bipartisan legislation, introduced by Democratic senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Republican senator Marco Rubio of Florida, two men separated by politics but brought together by a desire to “make brighter days a reality year-round.” In an op-ed for CNN explaining the bill, Rubio and Markey wrote that making daylight-saving time permanent could boost the economy with increased daylight and better the mental and physical health of Americans — which have been shown to be negatively impacted by both “spring forward” and “fall back.”

The only downside to the Sunshine Protection Act is that we would have to say good-bye to that extra hour of sleep in the fall. But if that’s the price of no longer frantically changing the clocks on our microwaves and coffee makers, and no longer losing an hour of sleep or an hour of sunlight, then I suppose it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

All the bill needs to do now is get through the House of Representatives and be signed by President Biden. If it passes, we’ll be freed from the clutches of pitch-black afternoons for good … starting in 2023.

Everyone Agrees ‘Spring Forward’ Is the Worst