Florida lawmakers were the first in the nation to pass a bill signaling their intent to stay on daylight-saving time year-round, but clocks in the Sunshine State will fall back one hour Sunday morning nonetheless.

Florida will transition to standard time this weekend along with the majority of the U.S. — stealing from dusk to bring earlier sunrises.

Despite overwhelming approval of the Sunshine State Protection Act in March, the only power individual states have is to opt out of daylight-saving time, putting them on standard time permanently, such as what is practiced by Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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But daylight-saving time activists said the momentum is spreading nationwide to change the daylight-saving time rules and that Florida played a major role in advancing the discussion.

“This is absolutely the most activity in recent years,” said Scott Yates, an entrepreneur who runs a blog dedicated to preserving daylight-saving time year-round. “There is a lot of interest in it. It’s just hard to fix the status quo.”

The Florida daylight-saving time bill, which passed 33-2 in the Senate and 103-11 in the House, says if Congress amends U.S. code it is the “intent of the legislature that daylight-saving time shall be the year-round standard time of the entire state.”

Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law two weeks later. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio quickly followed with a pair of bills — one that would allow Florida to stay on daylight-saving time, and another that would make the change for the nation.

Rubio spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said the bills are with the Commerce Committee.

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“We plan to reintroduce it in the new Congress and continue working to make daylight-saving time permanent,” she said.

Next week, Californians will vote on a daylight-saving time initiative with Proposition 7. If passed, the measure would allow the state to stay on daylight-saving time year-round if approved by the legislature in a two-thirds majority vote and allowed by Congress.

A European Union online survey this past summer found 84 percent of 4.6 million respondents do not want to change their clocks twice-a-year, according to the European Commission. The commission will propose changes to the European Parliament that reflect the views in the survey.

“All of the news out of Europe is how the science is clear that changing the clock twice a year is a bad idea,” Yates said. “Pick a time zone that works best for you and stick with it.”

But keeping Florida on daylight-saving time permanently would put it in sync with Nova Scotia on Atlantic Standard Time instead of New York.

It would also mean some December sunrises wouldn’t happen until after 8 a.m.

That’s why the Florida PTA opposes making daylight-saving time permanent.

“We cannot have our babies going to school in the darkness,” Florida PTA President Linda Kearschner said. “These students would be waiting for buses or walking to school in the dark making them more difficult to see and potentially creating safety issues for our children as they cross streets or wait at intersections.”

A Massachusetts special commission studying the possibility of a time change said schools should have later start times to mitigate safety issues.

A March report from the Congressional Research Service found 16 states have proposed legislation to establish some variation of permanent daylight-saving time. The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter that same month to the Department of Transportation requesting updated information so it could “more fully appreciate the various policy factors associated with changing between standard and daylight-saving time.”

The first nationwide daylight-saving time law was passed in 1918 as an energy-saving measure during World War I. But it was also supported by Boston-area department store owner Lincoln Filene, who compiled a list of the benefits of daylight-saving time, including that "most farm products are better when gathered with dew on."

In reality, farmers disliked daylight-saving time because they needed the sun to dry dew from their crops before they could harvest and go to market.

But more daylight after work meant more time to shop, play golf and go to baseball games.

“I think certainly it is great to have the later days because you can play an extra nine holes of golf and you’re outside a little longer because it’s lighter out,” said Palm Beach County Tourist Development Council Executive Director Glenn Jergensen about his personal preference. “I would like to get home from work and still be outside.”

The council has never taken the issue up formally, Jergensen said.

Likewise, the Florida Chamber of Commerce has not taken a position on the Sunshine State Protection Act.

In 1966, Congress approved the Uniform Time Act, which included a standard requirement on daylight-saving time. States were allowed to exempt themselves from the requirement as long as the entire state did so.

Yates believes the millennial generation might be the answer to ending the twice-annual time change.

“I think more millennials are saying; ‘Why do we do this?'” Yates said. “We are just doing this because we’ve always done it.”

Kmiller@pbpost.com

@KMillerWeather