When Does Daylight Saving Time Begin? What To Know In RI

RHODE ISLAND — It’s almost time to set the clocks ahead an hour and enjoy later sunsets in Rhode Island with the beginning of daylight saving time on Sunday, March 9.

There’s a chance it could be the last time we “spring forward,” as the practice on the second Sunday in March has become known, or that we’ll just leave the clocks alone.

President Donald Trump said in a December post on his Truth Social platform that “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.

However, it’s unclear if Trump favors standard or daylight saving time as a year-round permanent time. In 2019 during his first term in the White House, Trump said on the platform now known as X, “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!”

“Looks like people want to abolish the annoying time changes!” Elon Musk, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency adviser, said in a November post on X, which the billionaire technology entrepreneur now owns.

It’s unclear if Trump and Republicans intend to prioritize the adoption of a year-round permanent time. Ending the clock changes requires action by Congress.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has argued for making DST permanent. He and former Sen. and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio sponsored a bill together in 2022 to do just that.

"Spending more standard work hours in sunlight would reduce rates of seasonal depression. Americans exercise more frequently during Daylight Saving Time, reducing the risk of stroke and heart problems,"Whitehouse said. "Research also suggests that the extra hour of afternoon sun leads to fewer car accidents and evening robberies."

• Related: Will Trump And GOP Majority End DST?

Nearly every U.S. state has considered multiple time zone bills since 2015, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and 20 are poised to take effect if Congress allows it.

Polls over the years — A YouGov survey in 2023,a Monmouth University poll in 2022 and an Associated Press-NORC poll in 2019 —have shown a majority of Americans are weary of fiddling with their clocks twice a year. Where they disagree is whether the permanent time should be standard or daylight saving.

An informal, nonscientific survey of Patch readers last fall mirrored the findings of those and other polls on whether to keep or ditch daylight saving time.

“Whatever is chosen, just keep it the same. Stop changing the clocks!” a reader from Virginia told Patch. “I literally have to take off the Monday and Tuesday after the spring forward, or my work suffers for a week. It takes me that long to adjust.”

• Related: Patch Survey: Keep Or Kick DST?

Those who argue for daylight saving time cite the economic benefit of more daylight in the evenings when people are out of school or work and can patronize more businesses and restaurants and participate in more outdoor community activities. Others cite research that suggests permanent daylight saving time reduces crime.

Medical experts say daylight saving time disrupts the human body’s natural circadian rhythms. Increases in the risk of heart attacks and strokes, mood disturbances and traffic crashes due to decreased alertness are also associated with the time switch. Parents say it throws off their kids’ bedtimes.

In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said it believed the United States should “eliminate seasonal time changes in favor of a national, fixed, year-round time.”

Year-round DST would mean that, in early January, the sun wouldn’t rise until well after 8 a.m. in many parts of the country, particularly in the northern U.S. And year-round standard time would push sunrises to as early as 4:30 a.m. in some areas.

If nothing happens at the federal level and DST takes effect as scheduled on Sunday, March 9, it will end on Sunday, Nov. 2 — again assuming nothing happens in Washington to stop it.