Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an Oct. 5 interview that “there’s no clear path forward” for legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent.
Thune’s comments, made to Politico, come days after President Donald Trump appeared to give out Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number amid the senator’s objections to the bill.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” Thune told Politico. “It’s something we’re having conversations about, but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
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In July, the House of Representatives voted to allow states to enact year-round daylight saving time, but the bill has stalled in the Senate. Cotton emerged as one of the leaders of the opposition to the Sunshine Protection Act.
During an October 2025 Senate floor speech, Cotton pointed to when daylight saving was briefly made permanent by Congress in 1974 and said that “millions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness.”
He said that returning to permanent daylight saving would “again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans” and “push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunshine that’s essential for our safety and well-being.”
While Cotton drew the president’s ire, Thune told Politico that opposition among Senate Republicans extended beyond Cotton.
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Sen. Roger Wicker raised concerns similar to those of Cotton’s in remarks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Oct. 5, according to Politico. He said he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune has opposed previous attempts to make daylight saving time permanent, Politico reported. “Your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything,” he said, according to the news outlet.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thune says no ‘path forward’ for permanent daylight saving time bill
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