A 1973 law made daylight saving yearlong for a trial period. Then it was canceled early.

If a new bill to make daylight saving time permanent becomes law, Americans may not have to worry about changing their clocks twice a year. But some social media users don’t want to turn back the clock on the policy quite yet. 

On July 15, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 to make daylight saving time yearlong with President Donald Trump’s support. If the bill is enacted, Americans will see darker mornings and later sunsets during winter.

“Congress just picked the one version of clock reform America has already tried, hated, and repealed,” one July 14 X post said. 

History shows the U.S. has been down this road before.

The Standard Time Act of 1918 law established American time zones; daylight saving time was standardized in 1966. The 1966 law let states exempt themselves from observing daylight saving time — which Hawaii and Arizona have done.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act to reduce energy usage amid an oil crisis prompted by an OPEC oil embargo to punish the U.S. for its support of Israel. The bill installed a two-year trial period of permanent daylight saving time for most U.S. states, hoping that prolonged evening daylight would save fuel.

“We have taken a number of actions to meet the energy crisis, and more will have to be taken. Many require inconvenience and sacrifice,” Nixon said. “But daylight saving time on a year-round basis, which will result in the conservation during the winter months of an estimated equivalent of 150,000 barrels of oil a day, will mean only a minimum of inconvenience and will involve equal participation by all.”

Permanent daylight saving began on Jan. 6, 1974, during the coldest and darkest parts of the winter season in many states.

Soon, news reports of early-morning traffic accidents exacerbated safety concerns. In Florida, eight children died less than a month into the trial period, compared to two within the same time frame the year prior. Six of the deaths were attributed to the lack of sunlight as children went to school, a Florida education department spokesperson told The New York Times that year. Then-Florida Gov. Reubin Askew called the state legislature into special session and proposed that most of the state return to standard time.

“Any amount of disruption in commerce would be small indeed when compared to the life of even a single child,” Askew then said. 

As most Americans began their mornings in complete darkness, the new law’s popularity plummeted: 79% of Americans had favored the change in December 1973, but by February 1974, the figure stood at 42%, according to the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago.

Even the arrival of spring and summer — the sunnier seasons when Americans were already used to daylight saving — didn’t prevent U.S. politicians from working to reverse the change.

On Aug. 19, 1974, the U.S. House voted to end the year-round daylight saving testing period early. The Senate voted similarly and brought the bill to President Gerald Ford. On Oct. 27, the U.S. returned to standard time. 

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