On July 14th, the U.S. House overwhelmingly voted to pass the Sunshine Protection Act. The bill would end the twice-a-year time change to stop the country from complaining about it. The goal: no more walking into walls on March mornings or driving home in the dark in November.

So Congress tries to “fix” it every few years, and fails every time.

Like everything else lately, the “fix” swings to one extreme or the other, and each fix creates new losers. Permanent Daylight Saving Time sounds great until your kids are walking to the bus or school in total darkness in Rapid City. Permanent Standard Time sounds fine until your restaurant patio goes dead at 7:30pm in June.

We’ve had this fight since 1966. But we’re asking the wrong question. It isn’t “which hour do we pick?” It’s “why does it have to be a full hour?”

It doesn’t. The answer is to move the clocks once more, by 30 minutes, and never touch them again.

For the record, I think the twice-yearly switch makes sense. It never bothered me. We keep our days lined up with the sun as best we can. That said, if Congress *must* set the clock permanently, let’s do it in a way that bothers everyone a little instead of half the country a lot.

The biggest problem with the switching now is medical. The week after “spring forward” we see a 24% spike in car crashes, more workplace injuries, and a 6% jump in heart attacks. Sleep-deprived judges even hand out harsher sentences. That’s not trivial.

Those harms come from shoving our circadian rhythm one full hour overnight. Sleep research is clear: shifts under 30 minutes barely register. We’d suffer one groggy Monday in 2026, then change the batteries in our clocks, and keep our phones charged and be done. No more twice-yearly jet lag.

A 30-minute solution is also the only geographically honest one. South Dakota at 400 miles wide proves it. The sun can’t rise at a reasonable time in both Sioux Falls and Rapid City under a permanent one-hour shift. That’s astronomy, not politics.

The 30-minute plan lands a Sioux Falls winter sunrise around 8:15am. Permanent DST would push it to 8:44am. Out here in West River, Rapid City would see 7:55am instead of 8:24am.

It’s a compromise of averages. Sioux Falls gives up 30 minutes of morning light. Rapid City gives up 30 minutes of evening light. Extreme? Not compared to forcing a full hour one way and leaving half the state in the dark at 8:30am.

We know it works. Newfoundland has used UTC-3:30 since 1935. India and Iran use :30 offsets. Those countries couldn’t be more different than each other, and they all maintain airlines, stock markets, and school buses. The world didn’t break because they added a :30 option.

The 30-minute solution is the only plan that reduces harm for everyone, instead of maximizing it for half the country.

We tried permanent DST in 1974 for a short moment, then repealed it 10 months later after kids died at dark bus stops. On the versa, permanent Standard Time guts evening commerce and public safety.

One move. Thirty minutes. Then we never have this argument again.

Congress should pass a one-time Uniform Half-Hour Act. Pick a date in 2026, set the clocks back 30 minutes, and walk away. Let the sun be a little off for everyone instead of way off for half the country.

It’s not perfect. But it’s final, and moderation wins out instead of extremes. 

Or, even better- we toughen up a little bit, keep the time change; and our Agricultural Community gets to stay closer to the world’s business schedule and not just the Sun’s.

The views and opinions of this article may not reflect the views of The Rapid City Post, its affiliates, or advertisers.