MERIDIAN, Miss. — A Senate vote could decide whether Mississippi keeps gaining daylight or keeps losing it twice a year.
Congress is once again weighing whether to end the twice-yearly clock change and settle permanently on daylight saving time. The House already acted, passing the Sunshine Protection Act on July 14 by a vote of 308 to 117. The Trump administration is pushing hard for Senate approval too. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent lawmakers a letter this week urging them to act, and the president has been making calls directly to senators.
Where a state sits on the map determines how much it stands to gain or lose. Southern states like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina and Texas benefit the most under a permanent switch, according to newly published state-level projections. More daylight after work translates into more time for shopping, eating out, coaching Little League, or just sitting on the porch before dark, all things that matter for how local economies run in Meridian and towns like it.
Contrast that with states in the northern tier. Alaska, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota and Wisconsin would see the opposite effect: sunrise pushed later into the morning during winter, sometimes past 8 a.m. In Maine’s capital, for example, projections show the sun could stay down until nearly 8 a.m. on December 1 and set again barely after 5 p.m., a narrow window that has farmers and early-shift workers worried about safety on dark roads.
That regional divide is fueling pushback in Congress. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, whose state falls into a middle-ground category under the projections, has staked out a hard line against the idea. “I will always oppose any effort to adopt daylight savings time year-round,” he said, according to Newsweek.
Doctors are split from the public on this one. Polling from YouGov earlier this year found roughly two-thirds of Americans are simply tired of changing their clocks and want it to stop, in either direction. But medical groups like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine say permanent daylight saving time is the wrong fix. The organization’s president, Dr. Fariha Abbasi-Feinberg, has pointed to circadian rhythm research showing that darker mornings make it harder, and more dangerous, for kids to get up and safely reach school during winter months. Groups like the National Sleep Foundation and the Sleep Research Society, both part of the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time, back that position.
Where states like Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and much of the Mountain West land is murkier. Those regions would see a wash: extra evening daylight balanced against darker mornings, without a clear-cut winner either way.
For Mississippi, though, the math looks favorable. If the bill clears the Senate, Meridian and the surrounding region would likely see some of the biggest practical benefits in the country, according to the underlying analysis, more usable daylight for commerce, recreation and everyday life during the darkest months of the year.
Sources: Map Shows How Permanent Daylight Saving Would Impact Each State, Newsweek.
