"Did Daylight Saving Time Just Become Permanent? Senate Bill Passed in March Reveals All"

As we prepare to fall back an hour on Sunday morning, we resign ourselves to a winter of darkness. But it doesn't have to be this way! In March, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio proposed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, eliminating the biannual disruption of changing the clocks and relegating ourselves to standard time for months on end. The Senate approved the bill, but the Democratic-led House has yet to take action. Despite broad support, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's personal favor, the issue is currently not a priority for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A Monmouth University poll conducted in March showed that 61% of Americans would support getting rid of the clock changes. The misconception that daylight saving time was created for farmers is just that – a misconception. The practice began as an effort to reduce electricity consumption by extending daylight. The current practice of observing DST for fewer than two decades began in 2005 when President George W. Bush extended it as part of his energy-saving initiative. The Department of Energy found that extending DST reduced electricity use by about 0.5% every day. While the origins of the idea are unclear, Benjamin Franklin proposed the idea as a way for Parisians to save money by rising earlier in the summer and using fewer candles in the evening.