Millions of Americans woke up Sunday with one less hour of sleep: it was Daylight Saving Time once again. Most of them just lived with it — set the coffee maker a little earlier, accepted the grogginess, moved on. But in one northeastern state, a group of legislators spent that same weekend making the case that this should be the last time anyone in their state has to go through it.
The bill they’re pushing doesn’t simply ask to stop changing the clocks. It goes further. The proposal from Massachusetts legislators would pull the state out of the Eastern Time Zone entirely and place it in Atlantic Standard Time.
The zone that covers eastern Canada and stretches down into parts of South America. No more springing forward. No more falling back. Just one consistent time, year-round. State Senator John Keenan introduced the measure. The mechanics behind it are less obvious than they might seem.
A Legal Workaround to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent
Federal law creates a strange asymmetry for states that want out of the clock-change system. They’re allowed to opt out of Daylight Saving Time — Hawaii and most of Arizona already do — but they cannot, on their own authority, make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Congress holds that power. A state legislature doesn’t.
Switching to Atlantic Standard Time gets around that wall. In winter, when Eastern states are running on Eastern Standard Time, an Atlantic Standard Time state sits one hour ahead. That’s the same offset you’d get from keeping Daylight Saving Time in place year-round. Different mechanism, same result.
Senate President Karen Spilka came out in support of the bill on Friday, becoming the highest-ranking official in the state to do so publicly. “This should be the last time that Massachusetts has to change our clocks,” she said. “It would be better for our health, safer for our roads, and remove one more complication from everyone’s lives.” The bill, S.2157, moved to the Senate Rules Committee the same day, one step closer to a floor vote.
Federal Approval and School Schedules Stand as Key Obstacles
There is a catch — a significant one. The measure won’t take effect unless at least two neighboring states sign on: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, or Maine. Maine already passed its own version of the law in 2025.
Even with regional partners on board, the state would still need sign-off from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Time zone changes require federal authorization. That means, at some point, Congress gets involved — the same Congress that let the Sunshine Protection Act die in committee after the Senate passed it unanimously in 2022.
Schools present a separate problem. Permanent afternoon daylight sounds appealing until you consider what it means for winter mornings. Darker starts. Kids waiting for buses before sunrise. The bill directs a task force to study how K-12 schedules would need to adjust, which signals that lawmakers understand the tradeoff even if they haven’t resolved it yet.
Public sentiment, for what it’s worth, is not ambiguous. A Gallup survey found just 19% of Americans want to keep the current back-and-forth system. The disagreement isn’t really about whether to change — it’s about which permanent time to land on.
Health Research Fuels the Push Against Daylight Saving Time
The medical literature on this has been building for years. Research out of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health connected the biannual time shift to measurable short-term increases in heart attacks and strokes.
Work from Stanford and Northwestern Medicine pointed to disrupted circadian rhythms as a factor in elevated rates of depression and metabolic problems. A state commission that studied the issue previously recommended ending the practice and cited additional benefits: fewer workplace accidents, a modest dip in street crime, marginal energy savings.
States That Already Ditching Daylight Saving Time
At least 15 states have active legislation in 2026 aimed at ending the clock change. They’re roughly split between permanent Daylight Saving Time and permanent Standard Time, which helps explain why a federal solution has been so difficult to assemble.
There’s no national consensus on the destination, only on the desire to stop moving. The northeastern coalition taking shape around Massachusetts and Maine is notable precisely because it’s trying to solve the coordination problem that has stalled every previous effort. Regional alignment, not a single state going it alone.
Whether the bill clears the Rules Committee, whether two neighbors follow, whether Washington ultimately approves — those questions don’t have answers yet. What’s harder to argue with is the direction of travel. The political cost of defending the clock change is rising. The window for doing nothing is getting narrower.
