Missouri House yet again OKs plan to make daylight saving time permanent

Kurt Erickson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Apr 30, 2026

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Like clockwork, the Missouri House again has endorsed a plan to adopt daylight saving time year-round.

Debating an issue for at least the 10th year in a row, the House approved legislation Tuesday that would end the practice of Missourians having to change their clocks twice a year by making daylight saving time permanent.

With just three weeks to go before the Legislature’s scheduled May 15 adjournment and a crowded calendar of bills to act upon, it would be a long shot for House Bill 1758 to work its way through the Senate this year.

Even if the proposal did make it to Gov. Mike Kehoe’s desk, the change would not be a lock to go into effect any time soon.

Since 2018, 19 states have adopted laws calling for a move to permanent daylight saving time, but such a maneuver needs congressional approval to go into effect.

During House debate Tuesday, Rep. Jamie Gragg, a Christian County Republican, said the change he is sponsoring would result in more daylight in the second half of the day when children are returning from school and parents are arriving home from work.

Supporters on both sides of the aisle say more evening daylight would encourage spending after work and school.

“It will increase economic output,” said House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City.

Opponents, however, argued the change will result in people waking up in the dark through the winter months because the sun will not rise until 8 a.m. or later.

“Studies show that earlier morning light helps us set our circadian rhythm,” said Rep. Aaron Crossley, D-Independence.

Circadian rhythm is the body's internal 24-hour clock regulating sleep cycles, hormones, digestion and body temperature, among others.

Rep. Michael Burton, D-Lakeshire, reminded lawmakers that the nation largely rejected a move to daylight saving time in 1974 as an emergency energy-saving measure during an oil crisis at the time.

Under President Richard Nixon, the country moved clocks forward in January 1974, but the resulting dark morning commutes led to a reversal of the policy that October.

“The population, it turns out, seems not to have liked it,” Burton said.

During earlier committee testimony, lawmakers were urged to abandon the idea by Jay Pea, president of Save Standard Time, a national organization that lobbies government to make standard time the norm.

“It decreases learning, productivity, and earnings,” Pea said in written testimony submitted on March 2.

In addition to requiring school children to get on buses while it is still dark outside, Kenneth Wright, a professor and director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado, told the Associated Press earlier that the risk of fatal vehicle crashes, heart attacks and strokes increases in the days that follow turning the clock forward.

"Based on the evidence for our health and well-being and safety, the best option for us as a country now is to choose to go to permanent standard time," he said.

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