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ICYMI: Rubio Urges Full Passage of Sunshine Protection Act

Nov 3, 2023 | Featured, Press Releases

Why “Fall Back” and “Spring Forward” Should End––For Good

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)

November 3, 2023

USA Today

In the spring of 2022, something amazing happened. No, I’m not talking about everyone changing their clocks by one hour for no good reason…. I’m talking about the U.S. Senate passing a bill by unanimous consent to eliminate that pointless tradition….

Think about it. Why do we “fall back” and “spring forward,” year after year after year?…It’s not because of popular preference…. 22 states, including my own State of Florida, would enact year-long Daylight Saving Time (DST) if Congress would let them….

[Moreover,] when we revert to Standard Time this Sunday, public health is likely to decline. For one, it will get darker much earlier in the day. This is problematic for our entire society, which gets far too little exercise and far too much indoor screen-time….

That’s not all, either. According to several scientific studies, the stress imposed on our bodies by abruptly changing time may cause a six percent increase in car crashes, an eight percent increase in strokes, an 11 percent increase in depression, and a 24 percent increase in heart attacks.

With all these downsides, why do we carry on with changing the clocks?…We “fall back” and “spring forward” simply because of antiquated energy conservation measures from World War I. Those measures probably made sense at the time. But that doesn’t mean they make sense now, more than one hundred years later….

In the end, it’s clear that “fall back” and “spring forward” have outlived their purpose. I hope we can pass the Sunshine Protection Act through both houses of Congress this year—because we could all use a bit more common sense in this country.

Read the rest here.