'LockTheClock': US Senate Passes Bill To Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent Next Year
WASHINGTON (CBS NEWS) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent beginning in November 2023, a significant leap forward in the push to ensure an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day all year round.
The bill, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, earned 17 cosponsors from both parties in the upper chamber and was passed by unanimous consent.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has long been a proponent of making the clock change permanent and led the push to pass the bill.
Today we passed out of the Senate my bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 15, 2022
Now it's up to the House to help us #LockTheClock
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"The good news is if we can get this passed, we don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore," Rubio said on the Senate floor. "Hopefully this is the year that this gets done and, pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come."
But staying on Daylight Saving Time means sunrises well past 8:00 a.m. in December, said CBS 11 Chief Meteorologist Scott Padgett.
"Well, we've all been adjusting to the spring forward for us as far as the times are concerned. Sunrise this morning was at 7:37. Sunset around 7:36. As we go deeper into the year those days get longer for us, the fall equinox, sunrise will be 7:15, sunset at 7:23. Now if we don't turn the clocks back, Thanksgiving sunrise will be five minutes after 8 in the morning, sunset at 6:22. And here we go for the winter solstice, the sun wouldn't rise until 8:25 in the morning and set around 6:25 in the evening," explained Padgett.