Efforts to eliminate annual time changes and make daylight saving time permanent are picking up momentum in Congress with strong backing from President Donald Trump — a proposal long opposed by the Orthodox Jewish community.

Orthodox groups say that changing to permanent daylight saving time would have a significant impact on daily Jewish morning prayers, which must be conducted during daylight and would happen well into the workday in certain times of the year, and also raise safety concerns for children commuting to school in the dark. 

They have lobbied for years against making daylight saving time permanent, and past movement toward making the change has repeatedly fizzled out. But the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May voted 48-1 to insert an amendment codifying the change into a high-priority surface transportation package, a must-pass bill that could carry the measure through into law.

Trump and the White House have been directly involved in the effort, Politico reported, urging lawmakers to include the amendment in the package, and making direct calls to lawmakers on the provision.

“We are doing what we always do, which is, first, educate,” A.D. Motzen, the Washington director of Agudath Israel of America, said. “Many members of Congress are not aware of our religious practices, may not be thinking at all about daylight saving time, so it’s going to key members and talking about it.”

“Thankfully many members, after we speak to them, are fascinated,” Motzen continued. “It’s something they were not thinking about, not aware of, plus the safety issues for children, and are definitely thinking, thinking twice — even those who had maybe expressed support or did not have an opinion are thinking now.”

Motzen said that many lawmakers who support the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, don’t have strong feelings about whether daylight saving or standard time should be permanent — they just don’t want to change the clocks.

“So then we have an avenue to say, ‘OK, but if you do it this way, this affects us.’ So now they have … to balance between other arguments to do it the other way,” Motzen said.

Motzen said that the Orthodox community prefers the status quo of twice-annual time changes, a pattern to which they have adjusted, but that permanent standard time would raise fewer concerns than permanent daylight saving time.

The traditional proponents of permanent daylight saving time have been entertainment and recreation industries like golf, and many in Florida. Health advocates and physicians have been pushing for permanent standard time. The agriculture and airline industries have traditionally been advocates for the status quo, alongside parents’ groups and the Jewish community.

Motzen said that some of the opponents of the time changes have been less vocal recently, in part because “most people just assumed this issue was dead” — there’s periodic attention to it around the biannual clock changes, but it usually “goes away.”

“So I think that this is more of a surprise, because until now the president has not weighed in” in favor of making daylight saving time permanent, Motzen said, adding that Congress and Washington are tackling a range of other priority issues. “I don’t think that people had permanent daylight saving time on their bingo card of a must pass bill for this session.”

That the bill was attached to a must-pass package has made its passage more likely, he said, and he largely credited Trump with that development. He said, however, there are still opportunities to remove the provision or have it modified as it moves to the full House or especially the Senate.

“You have states that are going to … push back on its conclusion,” he said, noting that it is far from a cleanly partisan issue. “The Senate might be a little more deliberate, as they are fond of doing. … That part of the bill [might be] looked at more carefully.”

Motzen also noted that permanent daylight saving time was tried in the mid-1970s, and it quickly became a widely unpopular move that was repealed. At the time, he said, the change also had clear effects on the Orthodox Jewish community, which has grown significantly and has a larger presence across the country today.

In the ’70s, he said, there were examples of synagogues that had daily morning minyans for a century which then struggled to find 10 men who could attend daylight services before work. Some Jews had to find time to pray during their shifts, which was not an option for others.

“It has a permanent effect on the synagogue structure — [taking a break at work] would take care of his personal obligation to pray every day. It does not solve the problem that you have synagogue services that cannot get a quorum,” Motzen said. “It won’t solve the problem of a school that has safety issues for their [start times].”