U.S. President Donald Trump, right, speaks while Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, left, and listens during an introduction of the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act in the Roosevelt Room of the White House …
President Donald Trump renewed his push to make daylight saving time permanent in the United States by trying to step up the pressure on Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and releasing the personal cellphone number of the Senate Intelligence Chair so supporters could call it.
Timeline:
The Sunshine Protection Act, which would have Americans spring forward one last time and never fall back, passed the House in July, but has run into delays in the Senate. On Saturday, the debate over the time change reached a new level with Trump’s apparent doxxing of his fellow Republican.
The phone number he posted had an Arkansas area code. However, a call by the Associated Press was not answered and the voicemail box was full.
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‘It discombobulates everybody.’
What they're saying:
"It’s a lot of work for a lot of people, running around for two days, changing all the clocks in the house. It discombobulates everybody," Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Saturday for a rally in Vandalia, Ohio.
Trump added that by reverting to standard time in the winter, golfers have less time in the evening to spend on the greens and tennis players cannot stay on the court as long. The White House and other proponents have argued that staying on daylight saving time would provide more sunshine during the hours that people are most active.
‘Absurdly late sunrises’
The other side:
Cotton is not the only senator who opposes the Sunshine Protection Act, but he has been one of the most vocal. Many people who support the time change point out that not falling back in winter could create more hazardous mornings as children wait for school buses and parents head to work in the dark.
"No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter," Cotton wrote. "Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first."
Dig deeper:
The current debate over permanent daylight saving time is not the only time that such proposals have arisen. Members of Congress have weighed the costs and benefits of the time change ever since it was implemented in 1942, during WWII. The Senate passed a permanent daylight saving bill four years ago, but that one stalled in the House.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press. This story was reported from Orlando.