The routine of changing the clocks twice a year is once again under scrutiny.

Lawmakers have debated the practice of daylight saving time for several years, discussing whether to continue “springing forward” and “falling back” or to eliminate it altogether.

Recently, President-elect Donald Trump shared a post on “X,” stating his intention to end daylight saving time.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our nation,” Trump wrote on “X.”

Daylight saving time involves moving the clocks forward an hour in the spring, which shifts daylight hours later into the evening. In the fall, the clocks “fall back” an hour to standard time, shifting daylight hours earlier into the morning.

There have been health-related arguments for both daylight saving time and standard time.

Many people want to eliminate the biannual clock changes and establish consistency.

Previously, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio sponsored the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent.

“The reason why daylight saving makes sense is because you really can’t do outdoor activities, especially for kids and children in the community, because if parks don’t have lights, you’re shut down by 4:30 or 5 o’clock in many parts of the country,” Rubio said in 2022.

Rubio and other lawmakers supporting the legislation argued that it would positively impact overall health and wellness, businesses, and energy use.

The bill passed in the Senate but stalled in the House of Representatives.

Some doctors and health experts have also called for ending the clock switches.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has pushed for permanent standard time. In 2022, the AMA supported ending daylight saving time and moving permanently to standard time.

Health experts argue that permanent daylight saving time would result in the sun rising after 8 a.m. for several months of the year.

“We don’t have more sunlight; we just have a shift in the timing of the sunlight,” Cleveland Clinic Health Psychologist Dr. Alicia Roth previously said. “And this could make a big difference on your circadian rhythm, your sleep-wake schedule.”

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has also supported replacing daylight saving time with permanent standard time.

“It is the position of the AASM that the United States should eliminate seasonal time changes in favor of permanent standard time, which aligns best with human circadian biology,” the AASM said in 2023. “Evidence supports the distinct benefits of standard time for health and safety, while also underscoring the potential harms that result from seasonal time changes to and from daylight saving time.”

Currently, Arizona and Hawaii are the only states that do not observe daylight saving time.

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