Donald Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time

Donald Trump. Image via AP.

President-elect Donald Trump wants to turn the lights out on daylight saving time.

In a post on his social media site Friday, Trump said his party would try to end the practice when he returns to office.

“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,” he wrote.

Setting clocks forward one hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall is intended to maximize daylight during summer months, but has long been subject to scrutiny. Daylight saving time was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942.

Lawmakers have occasionally proposed getting rid of the time change altogether. The most prominent recent attempt, a now-stalled bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act, had proposed making daylight saving time permanent.

The measure was sponsored by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump has tapped to helm the State Department.

“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said as the Senate voted in favor of the measure.

Health experts have said that lawmakers have it backward and that standard time should be made permanent.

Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said that it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology.

Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do, the date that clocks are changed varies, creating a complicated tapestry of changing time differences.

Arizona and Hawaii don’t change their clocks at all.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.