Chairman Guthrie Speaks in Support of H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act

Name: Chairman Guthrie Speaks in Support of H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act
Uploaded: 2026-07-14T20:41:53.029Z
Duration: 2 min 7 s
Channel: Energy & Commerce GOP

Energy & Commerce GOP

Jul 14, 2026

The Committee on Energy and Commerce is the oldest standing legislative committee (established 1795) in the U.S. House of Representatives and is vested with the broadest jurisdiction of any congressional authorizing committee.

Today, the committee has responsibility for matters including telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, public health and research, environmental quality, energy policy, and interstate and foreign commerce among others.

The committee is led by Chairman Brett Guthrie (KY-02) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (NJ-06).

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate it. I appreciate my friend from Florida yielding. It's fun today because I've got my friend from Florida controlling time. I've got another friend from Florida speaking for the bill, Mr. Soto. And we've got the sponsor from Florida. And I will say also to the American people that, Mr. Speaker, to you, that a very famous resident of Florida mentioned this to me in the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago. So I know it's strong support. So it's aptly called the Sunshine Protection Act. And the reason is people like the longer daylight hours. They feel like daylight even in the wintertime. I live on the very eastern end of central time. My district is split almost down the middle. So I represent people who are on the very western end of eastern time, and I live on the very eastern end of central time. And it does get dark at like 4.30 in the afternoon where I live. And so people want more time and they want more daylight. But the thing is they just don't want to have to change their clocks. And as my friend from New Jersey talked about in 1974, we did vote to change. It was because of the energy crisis going on when I was a kid. And they changed it in the middle of winter. It was creating all kinds of disturbance. And so what we've done with this bill is let people know ahead of time. You're not going to have to change your clock. We have general assemblies that can lock in which time that they want. So we all know that Arizona and Hawaii stays on standard time. They will stay on standard time if their general assembly so choose. Any other state has the opportunity, whether they're in session or not. I know there's always provision, I know in Kentucky they're not in session, but there's a provision if the Kentucky wants to stay on standard time, they have the governor can call them into session and do so. I don't think they're going to do that, but states have the, so we've given states flexibility, but we've given our country consistency. And I really appreciate my friend from Florida, Mr. Buchanan, for working hard on this bill. And I believe it's the right time to do it. So I encourage my colleagues to support HR 139, the Sunshine Protection Act. And I believe it will be good for the American people. So thank you, and I will yield back to my friend from Florida. I don't know.