Lowell Sun0%
Editorial: Ditch the switch: Choose permanent daylight-saving time 63%
By Editorial0%
7/17/2026, 11:20:03 PM
Topics: Daylight Saving Time
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Confirmation Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 23.3% saturation with 198 hits. Analysis detected 1,331 faulty-reasoning hits from 851 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 57.7% and a BS Rank of 63% (8,244 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.30% of the article peer group.
Are we finally ready to dispense with the fall-back, spring-ahead time-change ritual that most of us across the country deal with annually?
That would be the case if the Senate follows the House’s lead in agreeing to make permanent daylight-saving time the law of the land.
That body of Congress overwhelmingly — 308-117 — passed a bill Tuesday that would codify year-round daylight-saving time.
Proponents, including the White House, contend the change would provide more daylight later in the day, giving Americans more time for post-workday activities.
During daylight-saving time — running from March through October — clocks in most parts of the United States are set an hour ahead of standard time.
States could opt out if their respective legislatures act to do so before the bill’s enactment.
The DST ball is now in the Senate’s court, where its prospects remain uncertain.
That’s an about-face from previous attempts by Congress to pass DST.
The Senate passed a bill four years ago to make daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House.
This time, the House’s leading the charge.
Republican Congressman Gus Bilirakis of Florida said Americans are ready to “ditch the switch.”
“In my home state of Florida where tourism is a cornerstone of our economy, having more predictable daylight hours is a practical improvement that benefits workers, businesses and visitors alike,” Bilirakis said.
Daylight, or the lack of, has consistently played into the arguments of DST backers and detractors.
Those opposed contend that permanent daylight-saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings, leaving children waiting for school buses and parents driving to work in darkness.
“Millions of Americans will wake up during the winter months in complete darkness with the sun not rising until long after people get up and travel to school or work or have to go about their days,” said U.S.
Rep.
Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
Buying that extra hour of daylight in winter does come with that dark-mornings downside.
Depending on your location, sunrise might not occur until 9 a.m. or later.
Most people would seem to prefer keeping the clocks the same rather than changing them twice per year, but that's where that unanimity ends.
A CBS News poll of 1,612 adults a few years ago indicated that most Americans don't like changing the clocks.
Of those surveyed, 46% said they preferred daylight-saving time year-round, 33% wanted standard time year-round and only 21% preferred the current system of switching back and forth.
A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that if forced to choose, most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening.
More than half of adults — 56% — prefer making daylight saving time permanent.
About four in 10 prefer standard time.
That divergence of opinion hasn't provided a national consensus for a permanent time standard.
The White House weighed in before the House vote, calling the “Sunshine Protection Act” a popular, common-sense reform and saying advisers would recommend the president sign the bill if it reaches his desk.
Two states, Hawaii and Arizona, have opted out of using daylight-saving time entirely — Hawaii in 1967 and Arizona in 1968.
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S.
Virgin Islands also do not participate in daylight saving time.
According to the National Conference of Legislatures, many states want to stop switching clocks.
In 2023 there were 75 pieces of legislation filed in 29 states, including three in Massachusetts, according to the NCL.
None has yet to become law.
There are also 19 states ready to switch to permanent daylight-saving time — Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — but they must await congressional approval.
Supporters have found other advantages for adopting year-round DST.
In 2016 our state Legislature created a special commission to study the "practical, economic, fiscal, and health related impacts of the commonwealth remaining on Eastern Daylight Time."
In 2017, that special legislative panel, chaired by then Lowell state Sen.
Eileen Donoghue, researched the potential merits of Massachusetts making that DST switch.
It concluded that "under certain circumstances, the state could make a data-driven case for moving to the Atlantic Time Zone year-round," effectively creating yearlong daylight saving time.
Changing to permanent DST could also improve the economy, create less street crime and lead to a healthier public, the report found, using research and input from experts.
We've previously advocated for permanent daylight saving time.
DST served its purpose during times of world wars and oil embargoes, but we shouldn't need an international incident to realize its benefits.
We can argue the pros and cons of daylight saving or standard time until it's time to change the clocks again, but it seems clear that switching twice a year isn't the answer.
While it has its detractors, the upside of permanent DST outweighs its drawbacks.
But it remains to be seen whether a polarized Congress can seal that deal.
Speakers
5speakers15%attributed speech720writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageWhite House
33 attributed words25% of attributed speech76% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.