For the second time in five years, Georgia lawmakers came tantalizingly close to ending the twice-yearly ritual of springing forward and falling back — only to watch the effort die on the final day of the legislative session.
House Bill 154, the latest attempt to lock the state’s clocks and spare Georgians the biannual disruption, never received final approval before the House and Senate adjourned sine die on Friday, April 3, 2026.
Georgia Daylight Savings Bill Ends in Another Dead End
The measure would have directed Gov. Brian Kemp to petition the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation to shift Georgia out of the Eastern Time Zone and into the Atlantic Standard Time Zone.
Had it succeeded, the state would have observed a permanent UTC-4 year-round — the functional equivalent of keeping daylight saving time (DST) in place 365 days a year without ever having to “fall back.”
Sen. Ed Setzler (R), one of the few opponents in the 45-5 Senate vote, has said it wouldn’t work from the jump.
“If Georgia made the move on its own it would be highly disruptive to business and logistics… By moving us to the Atlantic time zone, if Alabama didn’t move, we would have a two-hour separation from Alabama.”
The bill’s demise marks the latest chapter in a decade-plus saga of Georgia lawmakers trying — and failing — to escape federal rules that keep most of the country toggling between standard and daylight time.
A Persistent Push Since 2019
The modern campaign began in earnest in 2019 when Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock, filed legislation to exempt Georgia from DST and stay on permanent standard time.
He followed up in 2020 with a resolution urging Congress to let states choose permanent DST instead. Neither went anywhere.
In 2021, the debate reached a fever pitch on the final day of session. The Senate first passed a bill for permanent standard time, then reversed itself and voted 45-6 to adopt permanent daylight saving time — provided Congress ever gave the green light.
The so-called Georgia Sunshine Protection Act passed both chambers but has sat dormant ever since because federal law still prohibits states from unilaterally choosing permanent DST. Only permanent standard time is currently allowed without Washington’s blessing.
Fast-forward to 2025-2026. Frustrated by congressional inaction, sponsors tried a creative workaround. HB 154 — originally an unrelated ambulance-services bill — was stripped and rewritten in the Senate to request the time-zone shift to Atlantic Standard Time. The Senate passed the amended version 45-5 in late March.
Supporters, including Sen. Bo Hatchett, argued the change would eliminate confusion for families, schools, and businesses while delivering the health and safety benefits long associated with year-round later sunsets.
“Every time we change the clock, we create confusion for families, for businesses, for schools, and for anyone trying to maintain a consistent routine,” Hatchett said. And for what? The evidence that this system does what it was originally intended to do is weak at best. But the evidence that it disrupts people’s lives, that is overwhelming.”
Why It Matters — and Why It Keeps Failing
Georgia is far from alone. Nineteen states, including several in the South, have passed similar “trigger” bills waiting on Congress to allow permanent DST nationwide.
The federal Uniform Time Act of 1966 (updated in 2005) still ties states’ hands: they can opt out of DST entirely and stay on standard time, but they cannot choose permanent daylight without explicit congressional approval.
That legal reality has forced Georgia into repeated procedural gymnastics — resolutions, referendums, trigger bills, and now the Atlantic Time Zone petition — all of which have ultimately stalled.Critics of the status quo point to peer-reviewed studies linking the spring-forward change to spikes in heart attacks, traffic accidents, workplace injuries, and lost productivity.
Supporters of the current system counter that permanent DST would mean dark winter mornings for children heading to school and farmers starting their day in pitch blackness.
Whatever the merits, the practical result for Georgians remains the same: on the first Sunday in November they will once again “fall back” an hour, and next March they will “spring forward” again — just as they have for decades.With the 2026 session now over and the bill dead, the question is whether lawmakers will resurrect the effort in 2027.
History suggests they probably will. Georgia has shown remarkable persistence on this issue; what it has not yet shown is success.
Final Word
But the clock literally ran out. The rewritten bill never returned to the House for concurrence before lawmakers packed up and headed home for the year.