NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump wants to turn off the lights during daylight saving time.
In a post on his social media site on Friday, Trump said his party would try to end the practice if he returns to office.
“The Republican Party will do its utmost to abolish Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong support base, but it shouldn’t have to! Daylight Savings Time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation,” he wrote.
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Moving the clocks forward one hour in the spring and back one hour in the fall is intended to maximize daylight during the summer months, but has long been the subject of research. Daylight saving time was first introduced as a wartime measure in 1942.
Lawmakers have occasionally proposed doing away with the time change altogether. The most prominent recent effort, a now-stalled bipartisan bill called the Sunshine Protection Act, had proposed making daylight saving time permanent.
The measure was sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whom Trump appointed to lead the State Department.
“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida said as the Senate voted in favor of the measure.
Health experts have said lawmakers are behind it and standard time should be made permanent.
Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said it’s time to do away with timers and that sticking to standard time is better aligned with the sun — and human biology.
Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do, the date the clock is changed varies, creating a complicated tapestry of changing time differences.
Arizona and Hawaii don’t change their clocks at all.
