TAMPA, Fla. — As summer comes to a close, Floridians will have to set back their clocks for daylight saving time.
Residents still have time to enjoy the longer days with more sunshine until the clocks change on Nov. 3. People across much of the United States will set their clocks to "fall back" one hour and gain an hour of sleep.
Once again, people will ask if permanent daylight saving time will ever become a thing, and in Florida, lawmakers keep pushing for it.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 mandates that the country use daylight saving time but allows states to opt-out and exempt themselves from the practice to stay on standard-time year-round. Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that don't observe daylight saving. So, Florida could opt out of it but instead, they want daylight saving to be year-round.
Where is Florida with its daylight saving legislation?
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has tried to "lock the clock" with efforts in Washington D.C. The bipartisan Sunshine Protection Act would end the twice-yearly time change and make daylight saving time the national year-round standard.
Former governor Rick Scott signed the legislation that would exempt Florida from the time change practice, pending federal approval.
The law passed in the U.S. Senate but it died in the House when it was never voted on. If Congress repeals the Uniform Time Act of 1966, Florida's law would go into effect immediately.
What would it be like if daylight saving was all year?
In the Tampa Bay area, there would be more light heading into the evening. Tampa currently has about 292 days with a sunset after 6 p.m., according to a visualization by Andy Woodruff. This would increase to about 365 days with daylight saving time always in effect.
With the change, residents would have fewer days with sunset before 7 a.m.
How did this time-change start?
During WWI, the United States implemented daylight saving time with the thought that it would save energy and during WWII, the government instituted the time change year-round, nationwide.
Following the war, states and localities switched between daylight saving time and standard time at will and to stop the chaos, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. In 1974, the government adopted permanent daylight saving time due to the energy crisis but public support dropped so low that it was repealed.
People didn't like it because, in some areas during the winter, the sun wouldn't rise until 9 a.m. or even later.
