Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., say Congress should make daylight saving time permanent.
The two made their comments in a column posted Friday by Fox News.
"This Sunday, 97 percent of Americans will be forced to change their clocks once again, 'springing forward' an hour into daylight saving time (DST)," they wrote.
"The process of having to reset our clocks is an irritatingly outdated practice that we should ditch. We should instead embrace DST as a critically important way to realign daylight time to Americans' most productive hours, while also improving public health and the American economy."
The two have introduced the "Sunshine Protection Act" to "shift the United States to permanent DST year-round."
"Standardizing DST wouldn't entail some massive change, nor would it overturn some profound legacy in American history," they noted.
And they maintained year-round DST would aid public safety.
"A Brookings study suggests it would bring a 27 percent reduction in robberies committed during the evening hour of gained sunlight, with the overall daily rate dropping by 7 percent," the two senators wrote.
The lawmakers claimed it would also spur the economy.
"A JP Morgan Chase study found that Americans experience decreased economic activity while not on DST, a drop that could be avoided by making daylight saving permanent," Rubio and Hyde-Smith said.
"Inconveniencing hundreds of millions of Americans to continue changing our clocks for 16 dark weeks is antiquated and outdated," they said. "With such clear advantages to year-round DST, Congress has no excuse to remain in the dark on the issue."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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