On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 308–117 to pass the
Sunshine Protection Act (H.R. 139), a major bipartisan bill aimed at making
daylight saving time permanent across the United States.House passes bill to
make daylight saving time
permanenthttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/daylight-saving-time-permanent-house-vote/WorldTimeZone.com
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-------- Original message --------From: James Bellaire via tz <[email protected]>
Date: 7/10/26 12:33 (GMT-05:00) To: [email protected] Subject: [tz] Re: US House to
vote on bill to make daylight saving time permanent
On 7/9/2026 9:14 PM, Jacob Pratt via tz
wrote:
Article:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-vote-bill-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent-2026-07-09/
Looking at the text of the bill itself[^1], there is no
date of effectiveness, so it would take effect immediately
upon signing. States currently not observing DST (i.e. Hawaii
and most of Arizona) can remain on standard time, but everyone
else would be advanced an hour year-round. Because no
territories currently observe DST, the bill would de facto
have no effect there.
Interestingly, there is nothing that specifies whether
standard or daylight time is used in Hawaii, Arizona, and the
territories if they don't explicitly pass a bill, but I
presume common sense would prevail in that nothing changes.
A parallel bill (S.29) was introduced in the Senate.
[^1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/139/text
When the Senate passed the 2021 version of this bill (March 15,
2022) they amended it to be effective November 5, 2023. The bill
was held in the house until the end of the session and died.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623
The language from the bill has already passed the committee (May
21, 2026) as an amendment to another transportation bill.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7389/text
There IS wording in the bill that allows the areas currently
following standard time year round to remain on standard time, if
they choose to do so.
(b) Standard time for
certain States and areas.
The standard time for a State that has exempted itself from
the provisions of section 3(a) of the Uniform Time Act of 1966
(15 U.S.C. 260a(a)), as in effect on the day before the date
of the enactment of the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025,
pursuant to such section, or an area of a State that has
exempted such area from such provisions pursuant to such
section, shall be, as such State considers appropriate—
(1) the standard time for such State or area, as the case may
be, pursuant to subsection (a) of this section; or
(2) the standard time for such State or area, as the case may
be, pursuant to subsection (a) of this section as it was in
effect on the day before the date of the enactment of the
Sunshine Protection Act of 2025.
It is a messy situation since the bill effectively redefines each
time zone to be one hour less offset from UTC and ends daylight
saving time. So if Arizona decides to opt out of the change they
would be on MST (UTC-7) while the rest of the mountain time zone
would be on MST (UTC-6). Hawaii would be on HST (UTC-10) while
western Alaska would be on HST (UTC-09). Puerto Rico would be AST
(UTC-4) while Pituffik Space Base Greenland (formerly Thule Air
Force Base) would be on AST (UTC-3).
A version of this bill has been introduced in both the house and
senate every session since 2018. The 2021 version is the only one
that passed either body. That history leads me to believe that IF
it passes both bodies it will get an effective date in November
2027 - the full year notice that is requested by this list.
