President-elect Donald Trump and Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno) don’t have much in common, but they seem to agree on at least one thing: Daylight saving time (DST) should be relegated to the trash heap of history. 

Last month, Trump revived debate online about eliminating the hassle of springing forward and falling back each year, describing DST as “inconvenient” and “very costly to our nation.” He further announced that the Republican Party would, apparently, make the elimination of the time change a focus in coming years — a policy pledge that was applauded by many of his most influential allies, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Of course, doing so would require more than Trump’s mere social media musings. As it turns out, doing away with DST would also require congressional approval — and as we saw with last month’s debate about the debt ceiling, Republicans aren’t exactly spectacular at rallying together to get their party’s agenda across the finish line in Washington, D.C.

In other words, unless a sudden spate of congressional competency breaks out within the GOP-led House this year, there might not be much likelihood of reform actually making progress on the national level. 

Nonetheless, Nevada could still act on its own without congressional action — which is precisely what La Rue Hatch has proposed with AB81. Her bill would move Nevada permanently to standard time, joining Hawaii and Arizona in shunning the annual ritual of springing forward.

Despite similar proposals failing in years past, it’s still an exciting prospect for those of us who find the biannual tradition of resetting the clock on our microwave rather irksome — which is, apparently, how a great many of us feel about the whole ordeal. As it turns out, disdain for the arbitrary “spring forward” and “fall back” time change is widespread, with roughly 60 percent of Americans wanting to do away with the yearly transitions, according to a 2022 Monmouth University Poll. 

Whether we should shift permanently to DST or merely remain on standard time, however, generates a bit more debate among those tired of losing an hour of sleep each spring. 

Currently, DST is what we change to each spring, while standard time is what we endure during the dreary months of winter. The switch is designed to give us more daylight in the evening hours during summer — ostensibly saving energy and allowing us more “productive” time later in the day before the sun sets. 

Those benefits, however, aren’t universally understood to be worth it. There has long been strong evidence to suggest that adopting standard time year-round would be far better for the nation’s physical and mental health, as it more closely aligns with our biological circadian rhythms. 

Circadian rhythms, however, don’t seem to interest certain economists who have bought into the idea that changing the time the sun sets does everything from reducing criminal activity to boosting retail sales — which is a pretty impressive laundry list of supposed benefits for a mere hour of extra evening sunlight during summer months.

Those purported benefits, however, don’t always seem to manifest in the real world. In Indiana, a 2008 experimental study estimated that year-round DST would actually cost state residents by increasing household electricity bills as much as $9 million per year — a price tag large enough to cause anyone to lose a little sleep, regardless of their natural circadian rhythms. 

Indeed, the impact of DST on things such as crime, energy and economic activity are likely highly dependent on where one lives. For those of us in Nevada, for example, our hospitality-driven economy that thrives on nighttime entertainment probably isn’t too concerned with how early (or late) the sun happens to set. And it seems perfectly reasonable to doubt there’s any significant economic benefit to a later sunset in a city such as Las Vegas where summer weather generally means most of us are spending our evenings enjoying the air-conditioned indoors regardless of how early it gets dark — effectively negating any supposed energy savings one might otherwise see in cooler climates.

Preferences for DST or standard time aside, one thing is certain: The status quo of switching between the two is a relic from the early 20th century that costs far more to Americans than it’s worth. Studies have estimated the yearly switch to and from DST cost the nation anywhere between $670 million and $1.7 billion annually — not to mention the less tangible costs of frustratingly trying to figure out how to reprogram one’s automatic thermostat. 

And why do we endure such cost and frustration? Well, it’s primarily because the German government decided in 1916 that moving sunsets an hour later into the day would somehow conserve energy during World War I. Since then, the economic (and cultural) justifications for toying with time have endured across the globe — resulting in our “costly” and “inconvenient” tradition of arbitrarily shifting our lives by one hour twice per year. 

There isn’t much in today’s world that is capable of bridging our dramatic partisan divides. However, judging by the disparate political personalities who have called for changing DST, the hassle of resetting our vehicle’s dashboard clock twice per year is apparently somewhere on the list. In the midst of all the partisan bickering and political noise of 2025, that might not seem like much of a win — but if it means we could soon have a future where we’re able to leave our clocks alone all year long, it’s probably a win worth taking. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.