Policy 07: Make solar noon noon. Make midnight midnight.

Researched: 2026-07-22. Status: draft.

The plank

End daylight savings time. DO NOT create "permanent daylight saving time." Make noon noon.

Verbatim from README.md (Policy 7). app/templates/index.html matches word-for-word; the only difference is typographic (index.html bolds "DO NOT" and uses curly quotes). No drift to fix for this plank.

Interpretation: the plank calls for permanent standard time. Standard time zones already place mean solar noon within roughly ±30 minutes of clock noon near the center of each zone; daylight saving time (DST) moves solar noon to ~1:00 p.m. for eight months of the year. "Make solar noon noon" = abolish the biannual clock change and reject the currently pending alternative, permanent DST.

Timeliness note: this plank is live legislation right now. On 2026-07-14 the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 (H.R. 139), 308–117, which would do the opposite of this plank — permanent DST — and it is now before the Senate (see "The proposal, concretely").

The problem

The United States moves its clocks twice a year under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (as extended in 1986 and 2005). Each spring transition removes an hour of sleep from ~330 million people simultaneously, and the measured consequences are:

• Heart attacks: acute myocardial infarction incidence rises ~5% in the week after the spring shift; the effect is concentrated in the first three weekdays (Janszky & Ljung, NEJM 2008; Swedish national registry, 1987–2006). The fall-back transition shows a smaller, partially offsetting reduction.
• Strokes: ischemic stroke incidence rises 8% in the first two days after transitions, with higher risk in patients over 65 and those with cancer (Sipilä et al., Sleep Medicine 2016; Finnish national data 2004–2013, 3,033 post-transition hospitalizations vs. 11,801 control-week hospitalizations).
• Fatal car crashes: the spring transition raises fatal traffic-accident risk 6% for the following workweek — about 28 preventable deaths per year in the US — with the effect exceeding 8% at western time-zone edges where mornings are darkest (Fritz et al., Current Biology 2020; 732,835 US fatal crashes, 1996–2017).
• Workplace injuries: on the Monday after spring-forward, US miners suffered 5.7% more injuries and ~68% more injury-related days lost, on 40 minutes less sleep (Barnes & Wagner, Journal of Applied Psychology 2009; MSHA data 1983–2006).
• Chronic misalignment, not just transitions: across US time-zone borders, people on the late-sunset side (which is what DST imposes by policy for 8 months) sleep ~19 minutes less per night and show higher obesity (+21%), diabetes, and heart-attack prevalence (Giuntella & Mazzonna, Journal of Health Economics 2019).
• Economic cost: Chmura Economics estimated the transition costs the US ~$434 million/year (2016 estimate: heart attacks, workplace injuries, "cyberloafing"), later revised to ~$672 million/year across heart attacks, strokes, workplace accidents, and traffic accidents. These are consultancy estimates, not peer-reviewed — treat as order-of-magnitude only.

And the original justification is false: DST does not save energy. The best natural experiment (Indiana's staggered 2006 adoption, >7 million household-month observations) found DST increased residential electricity use by ~1%, costing Indiana households ~$9 million/year plus $1.7–5.5 million/year in pollution damages — lighting savings were swamped by heating and air-conditioning (Kotchen & Grant, NBER w14429, 2008; published Review of Economics and Statistics 2011). The US DOE's own study of the 2007 extension found savings of just 0.5% per extended day — 0.03% of annual national electricity use (DOE Report to Congress, October 2008).

The public is done with it: Gallup (January 2025, n=1,001) found only 19% want to keep switching clocks; 48% prefer year-round standard time and 24% year-round DST. Support for DST itself fell from 73% (1999) to 40% (2025).

How it shows up in an ordinary life: a groggy, dangerous week each March; a child at a dark bus stop; a missed appointment twice a year; and for eight months, a clock that tells your body it's an hour earlier than the sun says.

Who profits from the status quo

Honesty first: nobody lobbies for the biannual switch itself. The switch survives because industries that profit from evening daylight have repeatedly bought extensions of DST and are now pushing to make DST permanent — which is exactly the outcome this plank warns against. The specific interests, documented in congressional testimony and in Michael Downing's Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time (2005):

• The golf industry told Congress in 1986 hearings that one extra month of DST was worth $200 million/year in additional club sales and greens fees (1986 dollars).
• The barbecue industry testified in 1986 that an extra month of DST meant $100 million/year more in grills and charcoal sales.
• The candy lobby pushed for years to extend DST past Halloween for trick-or-treat sales — famously placing candy pumpkins on every senator's seat during the 1986 fight (Downing 2005). The 2005 Energy Policy Act extension to the first Sunday in November delivered it.
• Convenience stores / gasoline retail (NACS): the National Association of Convenience Stores was a principal backer of the 2005 DST extension and credits the extra month with ~$1 billion/year in added sales; convenience stores sell ~80% of US gasoline (NACS; reported by Tufts Now 2014, The Hill 2022). (Specific lobbying dollar figures earmarked to DST are not separable in disclosure filings — flag: lobbying spend unquantified.)
• Retail broadly: JPMorgan Chase Institute (2016) found LA card spending fell 3.5% in the 30 days after fall-back and rose 0.9% after spring-forward vs. Phoenix (no DST); supermarkets alone lost ~6% of daily per-capita spend at DST's end. This is why retail's revealed preference is more evening light, i.e., permanent DST.

These are real, factual, on-the-record positions — the villainy is mild but specific: seasonal-sales industries have twice (1986, 2005) purchased extensions of a policy that peer-reviewed evidence says kills a measurable number of people each spring, and their preferred "fix" (permanent DST) failed catastrophically the one time it was tried (1974, below).

The proposal, concretely

• Statute: amend the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S.C. §§ 260–267) to repeal § 3 (15 U.S.C. § 260a), the section that mandates the advancement of time from March to November. The nation then observes its existing standard time zones (administered by DOT under 49 C.F.R. Part 71) year-round. No new machinery is needed — standard time is the legal default the other four months already.
• What to oppose: the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 (S. 29, Sen. Rick Scott R-FL; H.R. 139, Rep. Vern Buchanan R-FL), which makes DST the permanent time. H.R. 139 passed the House 308–117 on 2026-07-14 with President Trump's backing and is now in the Senate. Its predecessor (S. 623) passed the Senate by unanimous consent on 2022-03-15 — several senators later admitted they didn't know the vote was happening and would have objected (BuzzFeed News 2022) — and died in the House.
• What to support: the Sunshine for Our Kids Act of 2026 (H.R. 9638, Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon D-PA and Pat Harrigan R-NC), which makes standard time permanent; endorsed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
• Where it already works: Arizona (since 1968, ex-Navajo Nation) and Hawaii (since 1967) live on permanent standard time under the UTA's existing opt-out — states may opt out of DST unilaterally, but may not adopt permanent DST without an act of Congress. Japan, India, and China observe no DST at all.
• Federalism note: 19 states have passed trigger laws to adopt permanent DST if Congress allows it (NPR 2022) — evidence of appetite to stop switching, aimed at the wrong permanent time.

Evidence

• Transition harms (strong): Janszky & Ljung 2008 (Sweden, national registry, 20 years); Sipilä et al. 2016 (Finland, national, 10 years); Fritz et al. 2020 (US, 22 years of federal FARS crash data); Barnes & Wagner 2009 (US, 24 years of MSHA data). Independent countries, datasets, and outcomes pointing the same direction. Caveat honestly: not every replication finds the cardiac effect — a Netherlands PCI study (2021) found no rise in coronary interventions — so treat ~5% as an upper-middle estimate; the meta-analytic direction remains positive.
• Energy myth (strong): Kotchen & Grant 2008/2011 is the best-identified study in the literature (true natural experiment, household micro-data) and finds DST raises residential electricity use ~1%. DOE 2008 found near-zero savings (0.03%/year) from the 2007 extension.
• Standard vs. permanent DST (moderate): the chronic-misalignment evidence (Giuntella & Mazzonna 2019: time-zone-border discontinuities in sleep, obesity, diabetes, MI) supports standard time specifically. Both major scientific bodies agree: the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's position statement (Rishi et al., JCSM 2020; reaffirmed and strengthened 2023) and the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms position paper (Roenneberg et al., Journal of Biological Rhythms 2019) both conclude permanent standard time is the healthiest option. No comparable scientific body endorses permanent DST.
• The 1974 natural experiment (strong, and decisive against permanent DST): Congress imposed year-round DST in January 1974 during the oil embargo. Approval was 79% in December 1973 and collapsed to 42% by February 1974 after a winter of pre-dawn school commutes — including eight Florida schoolchildren killed in morning traffic, prompting Gov. Reubin Askew to demand repeal. Congress repealed it in October 1974, ten months into a two-year trial (Smithsonian 2022; National Geographic; Washingtonian 2022). The estimated oil savings (~100,000 barrels/day, Jan–Apr 1974) did not survive public contact with 8:30–9:30 a.m. winter sunrises.
• Coordination cautionary tale (moderate): the EU Parliament voted 410–192 in March 2019 to abolish seasonal clock changes by 2021; the measure has stalled in the Council ever since over which permanent time each member state would pick. Lesson: decide the destination (standard time) in the same act that ends the switching, or the reform dies in committee.

Overall strength of evidence: strong that the biannual switch causes deaths and injuries and saves no energy; moderate-to-strong that standard time beats permanent DST as the destination.

Who wins, who loses

No compensation mechanism is proposed and none seems warranted: the losses are diffuse commercial preferences, not livelihoods (unlike, e.g., ethanol farmers in Policy 5). Transition duration: one autumn — the change is simply "don't spring forward next March."

Fiscal impact

Be honest: this is the smallest-dollar plank on the platform, and its case is health and quality of life, not the budget.

• Direct federal budget effect: approximately zero. No agency is created or abolished; DOT's time-zone function continues unchanged. No CBO score exists for the standard-time bills (as of 2026-07-22).
• Social (not budgetary) benefits, back-of-envelope, labeled as such: ~28 avoided traffic deaths/yr × DOT value of statistical life (~$13.2M, 2023 guidance) ≈ ~$370M/yr; Chmura's transition-cost estimates of $434M–$672M/yr overlap this, so do not add them. Total social gain plausibly in the high hundreds of millions per year — real, but roughly a rounding error next to the housing, healthcare, or tax-filing planks.
• Small second-order public savings: avoided spring-week MIs and strokes fall partly on Medicare/Medicaid (unquantified — flag: estimate, weak evidence).

The opposition's best case

1. "People want more evening light, and permanent DST delivers it." (Sen. Rick Scott, Rep. Vern Buchanan, and 308 House members as of July 2026; retail and recreation industries.) Answer: it was tried. Permanent DST in 1974 went from 79% approval to 42% in two months of dark school-bus mornings and was repealed within the year. Gallup 2025 shows Americans now prefer permanent standard over permanent DST 48%–24%. Concede: summer evenings genuinely are one hour "shorter" under this plank than under today's DST, and people feel that loss.
2. "Evening light reduces crime." (Doleac & Sanders, Review of Economics and Statistics 2015: the shift to DST cut robberies ~7% in affected evening hours; ~$59M/yr in avoided social costs from the 2007 extension.) This is the strongest peer-reviewed argument for DST and we concede it in writing: permanent standard time forfeits some evening-light crime deterrence. Response: the mortality ledger (crashes, MIs, strokes) still favors standard time, morning darkness has its own casualty record (1974; Fritz 2020's western-edge effect), and street lighting is a policy lever; solar geometry is not.
3. "Ending the switch matters more than which time we pick — take the deal on the table." (Implicit position of the H.R. 139 coalition.) Partly right: both permanent options end the transition deaths. But the destination matters: every relevant scientific body — AASM (2020, 2023) and SRBR (2019) — says permanent standard time is the biologically correct choice, permanent DST failed its only US trial, and the Uniform Time Act already lets any state adopt permanent standard time today, while permanent DST requires new federal law. We should not enact the option that science opposes because its lobby is better organized.
4. "The health effects are overstated — some studies find nothing." (E.g., the 2021 Netherlands study finding no rise in acute coronary interventions after transitions.) Concede heterogeneity: single-country estimates vary and the ~5% MI effect may be smaller. But the traffic-fatality and workplace-injury results use decades of full-population US administrative data, and the energy argument for DST is affirmatively dead (Kotchen & Grant; DOE 2008) — so DST's costs are debated only in magnitude, while its claimed benefit is measured at ~zero.
5. "Coordination chaos." (EU experience: Parliament voted to abolish in 2019; the Council has stalled for seven years.) Concede the risk. Answer: the US failure mode is avoidable because Congress can set the destination nationally in one act — and the status quo already imposes coordination costs twice every year, forever.

Talking points

• One line: Clocks should tell the truth — end the time change and put noon back at noon, not an hour off by law.
• Thirty seconds: Twice a year we shock 330 million body clocks, and we can count the cost: about 6% more fatal crashes and roughly 5% more heart attacks the week after spring-forward — around 28 traffic deaths a year for nothing, because the government's own studies show daylight saving saves no energy; the best study found it raises home electricity use 1%. The fix is one line of law: repeal the clock-change section of the Uniform Time Act and live on standard time year-round, like Arizona and Hawaii already do.
• Two minutes: adds — Congress didn't keep this system for energy; it kept extending it because the golf industry valued an extra DST month at $200 million, the barbecue industry at $100 million, the candy lobby wanted Halloween daylight, and convenience stores credit it with a billion in sales. Their preferred endgame, permanent daylight time, just passed the House 308–117 — and it's the one version we know fails: America tried it in 1974, watched children die at pre-dawn bus stops, and repealed it in ten months, with approval collapsing from 79% to 42%. Every scientific body that has taken a position — the sleep-medicine academy, the circadian-rhythm society — says permanent standard time is the healthy choice, and Americans agree 2-to-1 (48% vs 24%, Gallup 2025). Honest cost: summer evenings get an hour less light, and evening robberies tick up somewhat with earlier darkness — we accept that trade for fewer dead drivers and schoolchildren. This plank won't balance the budget; it's the plank that proves policy can simply stop doing a harmful thing.

Every figure above traces to a sourced claim in earlier sections.

Open questions

• Will the Senate pass H.R. 139 this session? As of 2026-07-22 the Trump-backed permanent-DST bill awaits Senate action; if it becomes law, this plank converts from "end DST" to "repeal permanent DST" — a much harder lift (1974 suggests public opinion would eventually do the work, at the cost of a bad winter). Track S. 29 / H.R. 139 and H.R. 9638 weekly.
• Effect-size robustness: ask a reviewing economist to check the MI meta-analyses against the null Netherlands PCI result, and whether Fritz et al.'s 6% survives later FARS years (2018–2025).
• Retail losses — net or shifted? JPMC's −3.5% is a 30-day window; is annual spending lower under standard time or merely re-timed? No published annualized estimate found.
• Politics of the destination: is there polling on permanent standard time specifically in northern-tier states where the permanent-DST lobby claims support? (Gallup national splits found; state-level not verified.)
• AP-NORC 2019 polling is frequently cited as corroborating Gallup; exact figures not verified in this pass — verify before the ebook draft (unverified).
• Chmura's $434M/$672M figures are consultancy estimates without published peer review — decide whether to keep them or rely solely on the academic VSL calculation.

Sources

1. Janszky, I. & Ljung, R., "Shifts to and from Daylight Saving Time and Incidence of Myocardial Infarction," NEJM 359:1966–1968 (2008). https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc0807104 — primary.
2. Sipilä, J.O. et al., "Changes in ischemic stroke occurrence following daylight saving time transitions," Sleep Medicine 27–28:20–24 (2016). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945716302222 — primary.
3. Fritz, J. et al., "A Chronobiological Evaluation of the Acute Effects of Daylight Saving Time on Traffic Accident Risk," Current Biology 30(4):729–735 (2020). https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31678-1 — primary.
4. Barnes, C.M. & Wagner, D.T., "Changing to daylight saving time cuts into sleep and increases workplace injuries," Journal of Applied Psychology 94(5):1305–1317 (2009). https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl9451317.pdf — primary.
5. Kotchen, M.J. & Grant, L.E., "Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Indiana," NBER Working Paper 14429 (2008); Review of Economics and Statistics 93(4):1172–1185 (2011). https://www.nber.org/papers/w14429 — primary.
6. US Department of Energy, "Impact of Extended Daylight Saving Time on National Energy Consumption," Report to Congress, EPAct 2005 § 110 (October 2008). https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/05/f22/epact_sec_110_edst_report_to_congress_2008.pdf — primary.
7. Giuntella, O. & Mazzonna, F., "Sunset time and the economic effects of social jetlag: evidence from US time zone borders," Journal of Health Economics 65:210–226 (2019). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629618309718 — primary.
8. Rishi, M.A. et al., "Daylight saving time: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement," JCSM 16(10):1781–1784 (2020); updated as "Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety," JCSM (2023). https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.8780 ; https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.10898 — primary.
9. Roenneberg, T. et al. (SRBR position paper), "Why Should We Abolish Daylight Saving Time?" Journal of Biological Rhythms 34(3):227–230 (2019). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0748730419854197 — primary.
10. Doleac, J.L. & Sanders, N.J., "Under the Cover of Darkness: How Ambient Light Influences Criminal Activity," Review of Economics and Statistics 97(5):1093–1103 (2015). https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/97/5/1093/58281 — primary.
11. Downing, M., Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, Shoemaker & Hoard (2005); 1986 industry figures also via NPR (2007) and Quartz (2024). https://michaeldowningbooks.com/books/spring-forward/ ; https://www.npr.org/2007/03/08/7779869/the-reasoning-behind-changing-daylight-saving — secondary.
12. Tufts Now, "The Cost of Daylight Saving Time" (2014) — NACS $1B claim and 2005 extension lobbying. https://now.tufts.edu/2014/03/04/cost-daylight-saving-time — secondary.
13. JPMorgan Chase Institute, "Shedding Light on Daylight Saving Time" (2016). https://www.jpmorganchase.com/institute/all-topics/financial-health-wealth-creation/jpmc-institute-daylight-savings-report — primary (proprietary data).
14. Chmura Economics & Analytics, "The Economic Cost of Daylight Savings Time" ($434M, 2016) and update ($672M). https://www.chmura.com/blog/dst ; https://www.chmura.com/blog/cost-of-dst — secondary (consultancy, not peer-reviewed).
15. Gallup, "More Than Half in U.S. Want Daylight Saving Time Sunsetted" (poll fielded Jan 21–27, 2025, n=1,001). https://news.gallup.com/poll/657584/half-daylight-saving-time-sunsetted.aspx — primary.
16. Smithsonian Magazine, "What Happened the Last Time the U.S. Tried to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent?" (2022); Washingtonian (2022); National Geographic — 1974 experiment, approval 79%→42%, Florida child deaths, repeal. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-the-last-time-the-us-tried-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent-180979742/ — secondary.
17. S. 623, 117th Congress — Senate passage by unanimous consent, 2022-03-15. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623 — primary. BuzzFeed News, "Everyone Was Surprised By The Senate Passing Permanent Daylight Saving Time. Especially The Senators." (2022). https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/daylight-saving-time-senate — secondary.
18. S. 29 / H.R. 139, 119th Congress, Sunshine Protection Act of 2025; House passage 308–117 on 2026-07-14. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/29 ; https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/139 ; The Hill, "House passes bill to make daylight saving time permanent" (2026-07-14) https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5968255-house-sunshine-protection-act-daylight-saving-time/ ; GovTrack House Vote #238 (2026) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/119-2026/h238 — primary (bill), secondary (coverage). Party breakdown of the 308–117 vote not yet verified — unverified pending roll-call check.
19. H.R. 9638, 119th Congress, Sunshine for Our Kids Act of 2026 (Scanlon/Harrigan — permanent standard time). https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/9638/text ; AASM endorsement: https://aasm.org/aasm-sunshine-kids-act-permanent-standard-time/ — primary.
20. Uniform Time Act of 1966, 15 U.S.C. §§ 260–267 (DST mandate at § 260a); DOT time-zone regulations, 49 C.F.R. Part 71. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/71.2 ; https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/daylight-saving-time — primary.
21. NPR, "These are the states enacting legislation to help make daylight saving time permanent" (2022) — 19 state trigger laws. https://www.npr.org/2022/11/06/1134562545/daylight-saving-time-permanent-states — secondary.
22. European Parliament Legislative Train, "Directive discontinuing seasonal changes of time" — Parliament vote 410–192 (2019-03-26), stalled in Council. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-union-of-democratic-change/file-discontinuing-seasonal-changes-of-time — primary.
23. Netherlands null result: "Daylight saving time does not seem to be associated with number of percutaneous coronary interventions for acute myocardial infarction in the Netherlands" (2021). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8397810/ — primary (cited as counter-evidence).