The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the “Sunshine Protection Act” which, no doubt, comes as a great comfort…to the sun.

However, the sun’s fate still hangs in the balance with the Senate which might leave it to fend for itself. The cosmic question Congress is debating is not whether to dispense with the sun altogether, but deciding if they ought to allow the sun to keep shining longer at the end of the day or rise earlier in the morning.

President Trump has indicated he is prepared to sign the act into law, making Daylight Saving Time permanent, which, he said, “gives you a longer, brighter day. And who can be against that?”

This is not the first time Trump has assumed god-like powers. Remember in August 2019 at a White House press conference when he announced, “I am the Chosen One!” And earlier this year, Trump distributed an AI-generated image of himself in Christ-like robes, with one hand glowing with celestial light and the other hand apparently healing the head of a very ill person (who looks a lot like Trump critic, comedian, John Stewart). Further burnishing his omnipotence credentials, Trump claims Article II of the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Which presumably includes commanding the sun to do his bidding resulting in “more daylight at the end of the day.”

In a recent article, economist William Shughart observes, “The length of the day doesn’t change a single nanosecond. Clocks merely advance an hour, shifting sunlight from the morning to the evening.” (Is that true or is Shughart just another economist, trying to keep us in the dark?)

If this sunshine-protection thing works out, it could lead to more legislation-inspired defiance of the laws of physics. How about a “National Gravity-Reduction Act?” This would direct everybody to recalibrate their bathroom scales to make it look like we all weigh ten pounds less. Or how about the “Making-a-Silk-Purse-out-of-a-Sow’s-Ear Conservation of Energy Act?” This would state that while it may be true that energy cannot be created or destroyed, from now on energy will just take longer getting around the Strait of Hormuz. Or maybe the “Flat Earth Act” that declares the Earth isn’t round after all and don’t believe anything science tells us. If the Earth was really round, you could, like the 16th century explorer, Magellan claimed, eventually go east by going west. I’ve tried that dozens of times and it never works.

Anyway, I’m not so sure making the sun stay out longer is such a good idea. Just ask people in the Arctic Circle how they like living in the Land of the Midnight Sun. In Svalbard, Norway, the sun stays up from late April to late August. They probably never sleep. They must work 16 hours a day and forget to go home at night. They would be mowing their lawns at 3 a.m. and wouldn’t know if they were eating breakfast or supper.

And do we really need to control the sun now that we know how to fall back and spring forward?