Daylight saving time returns at 2 a.m. on Sunday. Unless Congress stops the madness of springing forward and falling back every year, it will end Nov. 2, when standard time resumes.

Twenty states have proposed or enacted legislation to implement daylight saving time permanently. But those laws cannot go into effect until Congress amends or repeals the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which established the current twice-yearly clock change regime.

We’ve been here before. The United States adopted year-round daylight saving time during the two global wars of the 20th century and again starting on Jan. 6, 1974. Both policies were justified as a means of saving not time, but energy.

When the U.S. Department of Energy finally studied the issue in 2008—a four-week extension of daylight saving time mandated by an amendment to the 1966 Uniform Time Act—the energy savings were found to be trivial: 0nly about a 0.03 percent reduction in national energy consumption. Subsequent research, including a 2010 study by environmental economists Matthew Kotchen of Yale and Laura Grant, then with the University of California, Santa Barbara, indicates daylight saving time actually “increases electricity demand.”

Significantly, 1974’s permanent experiment with daylight saving time ended after just eight months. Though intended to last two years, it was canceled in response to strong opposition from parents who objected to sending their children to school in the dark during late fall and early winter. According to Time magazine, “Eight children in Florida were involved in pre-dawn car accidents in the wake of the time change, leading a TV commentator to coin the phrase ‘daylight disaster time.’”

Daylight saving time has other serious dark sides. Springing clocks forward one hour in March causes worrisome physical and mental health effects, including spikes in heart attacks, strokes and automobile accidents. Sleep deprivation makes people groggy, less focused and less productive on the job until they adjust to the time change. Those adjustments take longer at older ages.

The adverse health consequences of daylight saving time explain why the American Medical Association and many sleep specialists and physiologists recommend staying on standard time throughout the calendar year.

Standard time aligns the human body more closely with the sun. Sunlight optimally sets our body clocks (circadian rhythms).

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 permits individual states to adopt standard time year-round without congressional action. But only Hawaii, parts of Arizona (areas beyond the borders of the Navajo Nation, which comprises 27,000 square miles of that state plus portions of Utah and New Mexico) and the outlying U.S. territories do not observe daylight saving time. So Arizona operates under two different time regimes from March to November: DST for those living on the reservation and standard time for everyone else.

The number of hours the sun is shining has nothing to do with where the hands of the clock point. The season, and the arc distance from the equator to your location on the globe, determine the length of the day.

The benefits to after-work golfers and others who like longer sunlit evenings hardly justify the substantial costs of the twice-yearly time changes the rest of us are forced to bear. If people want to shop or play golf after work, they can leave their offices earlier in the afternoon when the day already is longer at northern latitudes.

In the late 19th century, the railroads adopted the convention of “standard time,” which is now in effect for a ridiculously brief four months every year. Standard time and geographically defined time zones helped shippers and passengers easily and more accurately plan departures and arrivals.

Daylight saving time abruptly shifts most Americans one time zone to the east. Why?

Daylight saving time does not “save” anything. We’ve tried permanent daylight saving time nationwide before. Repeating the same policy mistake and expecting a different outcome is one definition of insanity. Permanent standard time is the best way of resolving the current debate.