Every state ready to make daylight saving time permanent as congress passes landmark bill
Only about a third of countries worldwide still observe daylight saving time, according to the Pew Research Centre.
The UK continues to move its clocks forward and back each year, as do most European countries. However, nations including Iceland, Russia, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Georgia have opted out of the practice.
Meanwhile, the United States has also long followed the twice-yearly clock change, but that could soon change. Dozens of states have already passed or considered measures to lock in daylight saving time permanently.
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This week, the House could vote on the Sunshine Protection Act that would put an end to springing forward and falling back. President Donald Trump supported the bill, describing it as a 'very nice WIN for the Republican Party. Take it!'
A full House vote is the next hurdle, and if the bill passes, it would clear the way for individual states to lock their clocks in place for good.
What is the Sunshine Protection Act?
The new bill would make daylight saving time permanent all year, shifting an extra hour of daylight into the afternoon and away from the early morning.
As things stand, Americans move their clocks forward an hour on the second Sunday in March and back again on the first Sunday in November, as fixed by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
That law lets states opt out and sit on standard time all year if they choose, but it bars them from going the other way and adopting permanent daylight saving later without Congress signing off first.
Right now, only Hawaii and most of Arizona take the year-round standard time route.
Which US states are ready to switch?
Nineteen have already passed laws to make daylight saving time permanent once Congress permits it, shared by the Hill.
These include: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Others have pushed in the opposite direction, tabling bills for permanent standard time instead. Only a handful of those remain live in their sessions, in Michigan, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Why are Hawaii and Arizona exempt?
Both states already ignore the clock change and stay on standard time throughout the year. Hawaii sits close enough to the equator that its daylight barely shifts with the seasons, unlike the northern states, which have long, dark winters. Arizona's reasoning is more about the heat, as pushing daylight into the morning helps residents dodge some of the brutal late-day sun.
What would permanent daylight saving feel like?
Summers would look much as they do now, with late sunrises and late sunsets. The real change lands between November and February. Winter sunsets across much of the country would slip past 5pm, a welcome shift for anyone currently watching the light disappear at 4pm.
The trade-off comes at the other end of the day, with sunrises largely arriving after 8am, and after 9am in some areas.