December 16, 2024 - The long-standing tradition of turning clocks back by one hour during the winter season in the United States may come to an end. US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed that, after taking office, he will prioritise ending this practice. This tradition is followed every year, where clocks are set back by one hour to allow people to make the most of daylight. This is known as Daylight Saving and was established by Congress in the Energy Policy Act.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time which has a small but strong constituency but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient and very costly to our Nation,” Trump announced. He said in a social media post that Daylight Saving has proven to be inconvenient and costly for the US.

Similar calls have been made by the chairs of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to ban this system.

This practice was originally introduced with the idea that offices would close earlier, thereby reducing electricity consumption. However, the opposite has happened, as electricity usage has increased in offices because of the need for lighting even during the day.

Experts have been raising objections against "Daylight Saving" for some time. They believe that Daylight Saving can be harmful to health. It requires the body to adjust significantly, increasing the risk of stress, stroke and heart attacks. A study had found Daylight Saving increases the risk of heart attack by 25%, while a return to original times lowers the risk by 21%. 

In addition to the US, many European countries also follow Daylight Saving each year. The clock is either moved forward or backward in March and November.

Every year, the Americans reset their clocks twice - once in March setting it one hour ahead and the second time in November when the clock is set one hour back. So, on the second Sunday of March, clocks are reset one hour ahead at 2:00 am local standard time, making it 3:00 am local Daylight Saving Time. And again in November on the first Sunday, clocks are set one hour back at 2:00 am local Daylight Saving Time, making it 1:00 am local standard time.

The idea was to make sure that the clocks show a later sunrise and later sundown thus creating a longer evening daytime.