Sleep scientists, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, hate the idea of choosing daylight saving time over standard time. But it would take an act of Congress to do away with the federally mandated period for daylight saving time, which was created in 1918 by the Standard Time Act, the law that established federal oversight of time zones, and has been adjusted numerous times over the past 100 years. More than a dozen states have enacted legislation to change to daylight saving time. Retail and leisure industries have argued that more light in the evenings would give consumers more time to spend money, and proponents also argue that lighter evenings would translate to fewer robberies and safer roads. A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred a reporter to comments made by Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who wrote on Twitter that he was “hopeful that we can end the silliness of the current system soon.”
The senators urged the House to quickly follow their lead and pass the bill, which could prove controversial given longstanding and vibrant disagreements over how to set the nation’s clocks. (The lawmakers avoided taking shots at Benjamin Franklin, who is often credited as the first to suggest changing clocks to take advantage of early-morning sunlight when, in the 18th century, he realized he was wasting his Parisian mornings by staying in bed.) Whitehouse said, adding, “We have sunset in Rhode Island at 4:15 - 4:15!” It does darken our lives in a very literal sense,” Mr. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, lamented the moment when clocks change to cast New England afternoons in darkness.