The U.S. Senate has approved year-round daylight saving time. Will it ever happen?

Brendan Boyle lives in a house divided.

The Philadelphia Democrat supports the U.S. Senate bill passed unanimously Tuesday for year-round daylight saving time, and has introduced a similar bill in the House. His wife, Jennifer, reportedly is not doing cartwheels: She’s a schoolteacher who gets up at 5 a.m.

Says her husband: “I understand there’s arguments on the other side.”

This could take awhile.

» READ MORE: 7 things to know about daylight saving time

The fate of the so-called Sunshine Protection Act is in the hands of the House, and it is unclear when it might act, Boyle said.

The nation appears to be nearly evenly divided between the year-round DST and standard-time advocates. However, a majority favors ditching the twice-a-year clock switch.

That includes members of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who view this as a serious health issue.

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The academy continues to strongly advocate for year-round standard time, but in a statement posted Tuesday the group said that even all-the-time DST, is better than what we have.

Said Boyle, “We need to fully study it, and also resolve it. The cost of switching the clock twice a year is real.”

From now until Sept. 20, the sun will be setting after 7 p.m. in Philly, and after 8 p.m. from May 7 to Aug. 12. With daylight saving time, the earliest sunsets of the year, in December, would occur no later than 5:35 p.m.

The later nightfalls not only are popular, in warmer weather they are a boon to youth sports leagues, golf courses, outdoor dining, and other recreational activities.

“We desperately want our kids to be outside, to be playing, to be doing sports, not just to be sitting in front of a TV or a computer terminal or playing video games all day,” said bill sponsor Sen. Marco Rubio (R. Fla.), who represents a state split in two time zones, that includes a county in two zones.

By all accounts, most people enjoy the option of being outside in a twilight that lingers after dinner.

Also, they are able to keep the lights off longer, but air-conditioners might get a shade more use.

For starters, how about later sunrises. In Philadelphia the sun wouldn’t rise before 8 a.m. from Nov. 29 to Feb. 9, a period of 73 days that includes the coldest mornings of the year.

The Sleep Academy, backed by an armada of other medical organizations, holds that DST is disruptive to natural sleep rhythms and has cascading effects on health.

This later fall and winter sunrise time would be yet another challenge for school-age teenagers who may already have an adversarial relationship with waking up.

When the nation undertook a year-round DST two-year experiment in late 1973 during an energy crisis, it was abandoned after 10 months, in part at the behest of educators concerned about school buses plowing the darkness.

It ended on Oct. 27, 1974, likely to the dismay of candy-makers who loved that extra hour for Halloween trick-or-treaters.

Yes, for the majority of its history. The United States first instituted it in 1918, following the lead of the Germans, who started it on May 1, 1916, as a war-conservation measure, according to the Congressional Research Service.

» READ MORE: What to love about standard time

The great clock movement had its share of hiccups. Congress eventually rescinded the law, but re-established it in 1966, although not everyone cooperates. Most of Arizona remains on year-round standard time, as does Hawaii.

At one time the calendar was nearly split between DST and standard time. Through the years, however, standard time has been snipped at the edges, and now DST owns two-thirds of the year.

Most of the time, yes — a pandemic here, a budget crisis there, a war over there — and that’s one reason the House and Senate haven’t had much time for time changes, said Boyle.

At least in this instance, however, party or political affiliation won’t be an issue. The movement has bipartisan support.

And everyone appears to agree that one way or the other — standard or DST — has to go.

Only 236 days until the clocks go back; at least as things stand.