It’s almost that time of year gain: the annual “spring forward” in March that renews decades-long grumbling about the time change.
But this may be the last time we’ll have to lose an hour of sleep in the spring.
Nevada legislators — Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch, D-Reno, and state Sen. Robin Titus, R-Wellington — have put forward legislation to exempt Nevada from daylight saving time, opting instead to follow standard time year-round.
Known as the “Lock the Clock Act,” La Rue Hatch’s Assembly Bill 81 would take effect Jan. 1, 2026. If passed, Nevada would join Arizona and Hawaii in exempting themselves from daylight saving time. While Titus originally had separate legislation, she said she will sign onto La Rue Hatch’s bill.
“While I hope the federal government sees that this policy needs to be changed, we can’t wait for them,” La Rue Hatch said during a Feb. 24 committee hearing on the bill. “We need to enact something immediately for our constituents and hope that the federal government sees our example and catches up.”
This isn’t the first time lawmakers have tried to stop the biannual changing of the clocks, and it remains to be seen if their attempts will join the long list of failed legislation both at the state and federal level.
It’s bipartisan, so what’s the hold-up?
Elected leaders on both sides of the aisle have long expressed support for ending the changing of the clocks. A source of friction, however, has been whether to make standard time or daylight saving time permanent.
At least 31 states are considering or have considered bills or resolutions related to daylight saving time this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Proposed legislation is divided between those advocating to enact year-round standard time and those advocating for permanent daylight saving time, though that would require an act from the federal government.
A 2021 survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 75 percent of Americans are against the clocks changing, but they disagreed on the solution. Forty-three percent want standard time all year, while 32 percent want daylight saving time all year.
About one-third of countries practice daylight saving time, though approximately half of all countries have used daylight saving time at some point, according to Pew Research Center.
Advocates for making daylight saving time permanent say it will reduce seasonal depression, allow children to play outside longer after school and boost the economy. Keeping daylight saving time in place, however, would mean even longer dark mornings in the winter when people are driving to work or going to school, opponents have argued.
Titus, a family medicine physician, said stopping the clock is ultimately about health. There are multiple health benefits to moving to standard time, she said.
More documentation has come out about the negative health effects of changing the clock, she said. It takes several weeks to sync again with your circadian rhythm, and studies have shown an increase of car accidents occurs when clocks change, she said. Depression is also a negative effect, she said.
A 2017 Michigan Medicine study found the number of heart attacks increase the Monday after daylight saving time starts, followed by a 21 percent drop in the number of heart attacks the Tuesday after returning to standard time in the fall.
Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, an organization dedicated to expanding the observance of standard time, argues standard time is the “honest sundial time” when noon is roughly aligned with the sun’s highest point in the sky, with an equal amount of daylight before and after noon.
“It’s the fair and objective way to define the clock,” he said.
On daylight saving time, “we’re sleeping less, and when we are sleeping less, we do less well,” Pea said.
The U.S. has tried to enact permanent daylight saving time, and it didn’t go well, he said.
During World War II, permanent daylight saving time was adopted to help conserve fuel and ended when the war was over. In the 1970s, Congress enacted permanent daylight saving time for 10 months, “and people hated it so much Congress repealed it in 1974,” Pea said.
“Standard time is the natural time,” he said. “It’s the healthiest time. … Daylight saving time is a mandate to wake earlier. You bring your clock an hour forward. Your alarm will sound an hour earlier the next morning and every day after.”
Attempts to stop the switching
The Uniform Time Act of 1966, which established national rules for daylight saving time, doesn’t allow for states to permanently establish daylight saving time themselves; Congress must repeal the law for states to make daylight saving time year-round.
It does, however, allow states to opt out and exempt themselves from the practice, like Arizona, which passed a law to permanently observe Mountain Standard Time in 1968.
But it’s been difficult to get anything done — both at the state and federal level.
In March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act that would have made daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House of Representatives that same year, with a vote never going forward. Members cited higher priorities like the war in Ukraine and a budget deficit. The legislation was re-introduced the following year, also unsuccessfully.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced the Sunshine Protection Act again in January 2025, to make daylight saving time the national year-round standard.
“I hear from Americans constantly that they are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year — it’s an unnecessary, decades-old practice that’s more of an annoyance to families than benefit to them,” Scott said in a statement.
President Donald Trump has been vocal in opposing the changing of the clocks, but it’s unclear what solution he would support. In a December 2024 social media post he said Republicans will eliminate daylight saving time, calling it “inconvenient” and “costly.” In 2019, he posted in support of making daylight saving time permanent.
At the state level, gridlock comes from states afraid of going it alone while repealing daylight saving time, Pea said. State legislators have worried about the impact on commerce if it adopts a time different from a neighboring state. Pea argues that other states will follow once more adopt it.
Titus has put forward similar bills almost every session since she joined the Legislature in 2014, each time without success.
“It’s difficult to undo the laws that we pass,” Titus said.
In past sessions, progress bogged down as legislators weighed what is happening at the federal level and backers of year-round daylight saving time lobbied for their preference.
Nevada lawmakers urged Congress to change the law as early as 2001, when legislators approved Assembly Joint Resolution 5, urging Congress to extend daylight saving time to “conserve energy and promote public safety.”
During the 2021 legislative session, then-Sen. Joe Hardy, then-Sen. Pete Goicoechea and Titus, then an assemblywoman, put forward legislation that would exempt Nevada from daylight saving time only if California did the same. That legislation died without a hearing.
Nevada legislators this time around hope to see a different outcome.
People think daylight saving time means more daylight and coming home when there’s still sunlight, but “in reality, we’re not changing how the earth circles around the sun, so the total amount of daylight is going to remain exactly the same,” Titus said.
“I think people would certainly get used to that,” she said. “Arizona certainly doesn’t change. Hawaii doesn’t change, and I think that’s what we need to be.”
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.
