By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to pass a bill to make daylight saving time permanent and end the twice-yearly practice of changing clocks that has been observed across most of the United States since the 1960s.
The 308-117 vote sends the bill to the U.S. Senate for consideration. President Donald Trump strongly backs the measure. If approved the clocks would not return to standard time in November, while states would have the option of opting out of year-round daylight saving time.
On Monday, lawmakers rejected a request to vote on an alternative proposal to make standard time permanent.
In May, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 48-1 in favor of the Sunshine Protection Act. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously in March 2022 to make daylight saving time permanent but the House never took up the measure in the face of opposition. The proposal would allow states to opt out. Hawaii and Arizona do not observe daylight saving time.
Supporters of the measure say the time shift causes sleep disturbances, greater workplace injuries and more car crashes. They also believe brighter evenings would spur more economic activity during winter.
Daylight saving time — putting the clocks forward one hour during the summer half of the year — has been in place in nearly all of the U.S. since the 1960s.
Trump has aggressively pushed for an end to the twice-annual clock-switching.
The bill still faces opposition from U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and others. Cotton has said it would result in absurdly late winter sunrises and force children to go to school in darkness in much of the country.
The U.S. used year-round daylight saving time during World War Two and enacted it again in 1974 to reduce energy use. But it proved deeply unpopular and Congress repealed it later that year.
(Reporting by David Shepardson)
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