Sunshine Protection Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Florida yielding. It is fun today because I have my friend from Florida controlling time. I have another friend from Florida (Mr. Soto) speaking for the bill, and we have the sponsor from Florida. I will say also to the American people, Mr. Speaker, through you, that a very famous resident of Florida mentioned this to me in the Oval Office a few weeks ago, so I know there is strong support.

It is actually called the Sunshine Protection Act, and the reason is people like the longer daylight hours. They like daylight even in the wintertime. I live on the very eastern end of central time. My district is split almost down the middle. I represent people who are on the very western end of eastern time, and I live on the very eastern end of central time. It does get dark at approximately 4:30 in the afternoon where I live.

People want more time, and they want more daylight. The thing is that they just don't want to have to change their clocks. As my friend from New Jersey talked about, in 1974, we did vote to change. It was because of the energy crisis going on when I was a kid. They changed it in the middle of winter. It created all kinds of disturbance.

What we have done with this bill is let people know ahead of time, you are not going to have to change your clock. We have General Assemblies that can lock in which time they want. We all know that Arizona and Hawaii stay on standard time. They will stay on standard time if their General Assembly so chooses. Any other State has the opportunity, whether they are in session or not.

There is always a provision. I know in Kentucky they are not in session, but there is a provision that if Kentucky wants to stay on standard time, the Governor can call them into session and do so. I don't think they are going to do that. We have given States flexibility, but we have given our country consistency.

I really appreciate the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Buchanan) for working hard on this bill. I believe it is the right time to do it, so I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act, and I believe it will be good for the American people.

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