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Government

Lawmakers Urge Congress To Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent (wsj.com) 188

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wall Street Journal: It's time to Spring Forward again, as most of the U.S. shifts Sunday into daylight-saving time. If it were up to some lawmakers, the lost hour of sleep every March would be but a fixture of the past. The tradition of setting clocks forward in the spring and backward in the fall has been a source of debate and consternation for decades. Efforts to make daylight-saving time -- or, in some cases, standard time -- permanent have bubbled up in state houses over the years. But the bipartisan cause to stop the time changes has gained renewed momentum recently (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), with lawmakers citing studies identifying the negative effects of clock changes on people's health and the economy.

Eighteen states have passed legislation or resolutions in the past four years making daylight-saving time permanent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2022, 28 states are weighing bills regarding the time changes, according to the group, which tracks state laws. The majority of the 68 measures seek to make daylight-saving time the permanent standard -- making the changes less likely to be swiftly enacted. Under current federal law, any state can choose to observe standard time year-round. But states can't move to follow daylight-saving time permanently without changes to federal law.

A bipartisan group of senators, including Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Ed Markey (D., Mass.), reintroduced legislation in March 2021 to make daylight-saving time the year-round standard. The legislation would allow similar laws passed in states including Florida, Georgia, Delaware, Oregon and Louisiana to take effect. But the bill hasn't made much progress in the past year. "Switching in and out of daylight-saving time is outdated," Mr. Rubio said in a video message Thursday, renewing calls for action. "Let's just lock the clock once and for all and put all this stupidity behind us." [...] Lawmakers hoping to make daylight-saving time permanent say it would reduce car accidents, risks for heart attacks and reduce energy use. Some researchers, however, have questioned the role that time change plays in energy conservation and its correlation to negative health impacts.

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Lawmakers Urge Congress To Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

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  • Please (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday March 11, 2022 @10:34PM (#62349853) Journal
    It would be so nice to be rid of the idiotic time change. I don't care which one we pick, but keep it all year. Please.
    • No. I will move the clock backwards and forward until the year that I die!
    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Not a poll, but yes. As FPs go, to the point.

    • by Sique ( 173459 )
      And in 10 years, people will complain and demand that the time should be different during the Summer, as compared to the Winter, as the human sleep cycle adapts to the different day lengths, and people tend to sleep about half to one hour longer during Winter nights compared to Summer nights.

      Humans don't have a fixed clock all year round, and forcing them to have one does not do well to human health. Before there were clocks everywhere, humans didn't care, as their sleep rhythm was determined by their dai

    • I set my clock Back one time
      but then I couldn't see it very well . . .
    • Keep Standard time, where Noon coincides with the Sun's position in the sky. Adjust the Time Zones to be more rational if needed. If we're going to abandon the relationship of Noon to the sun's high point then we may as well just say fuck it all and base everything on UTC.
    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Daylight saving forever please!

  • DST is the ultimate power play, because it gives the illusion that the government can control the rising and setting of the Sun itself.
  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday March 11, 2022 @10:42PM (#62349865)

    Every year or two we hear this same story, hear about how the momentum for change is growing, hear about how congress-critters are lining up behind the idea... then we hear absolutely nothing further for another year or two, until the exact same story comes back to the fore.

    I imagine this may eventually happen - about the same time that fusion energy becomes commercially feasible.

    • It's a slow gradual process but it's happening. The reason we can't get rid of daylight savings time changes is because they put a little bit more daylight and therefore more shopping hours which the brick and mortar stores want to keep. As those stores are increasingly marginalized they no longer have the political power to overcome the voters who actually want to end this nonsense. The reason it keeps coming up over and over again is because every time the voters try to do it the brick and mortar stores j
    • You need a significant amount of momentum to get a change like this done. It happens. I have zero doubt it'll happen. Your story is identical to that in many places in the world which dropped daylight savings.

      Give it a few years.

    • It will happen the same year that Linux taking over the desktop becomes a thing. Been hearing about both for years and both of them are like the flying car; elusive and just out of reach.
  • by forgottenusername ( 1495209 ) on Friday March 11, 2022 @10:56PM (#62349893)

    Every single year.

    They're never gonna do it, who knows why. Every year for the last several decades same exact news cycle when we spring forward or fall back.

    Since they're never going to do it, I'd support legislation to ban news articles discussing it.

    • I think you’re wrong. Unlike the stories from a decade ago, the last few years have seen several, individual states pass laws that are set to go into effect over the upcoming years, as well as more and more prominent politicians at the federal level calling it out. The number of states passing such laws has increased rapidly and if not for COVID and the last few years being so insane, we might have seen federal legislation already pass. We’re finally seeing a build up to when this thing breaks.

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        the last few years

        Isn't it pathetic that full-time politicians need that much time for something so simple?

        This is not a complicated law. Decide which time you want to stay on, then write what's two sentences at most, vote on it, done.

        Any group of halfway competent people could get that shit done in an hour, tops.

        • This is not a complicated law.

          Laws are not complicated. Agreeing on the law in a way that suits all parties representing all their consti... vested interests is complicated.

          It's a sign of a functioning system that they don't chop and change important shit on a whim.

          • by Tom ( 822 )

            Agreeing on the law in a way that suits all parties representing all their consti... vested interests is complicated.

            Of course it's not the writing that's tricky.

            Pretty much NOBODY likes the system where twice a year we throw everyone a spinner. The only interests are staying on summer or winter time. It shouldn't be hard to find a solution to that, if someone gave a fuck.

            • by theCoder ( 23772 )

              As someone who does not observe DST, while living in a location that generally does observe it, it is my conclusion that the switch is the only thing that makes DST even moderately effective. If we went to 100% DST year round (like the article suggests), then people would eventually adapt and just do things later. They would get to work an hour later, eat lunch at 1pm instead of noon, stay at work later, and eat dinner from 7-8 instead of 6-7, etc. It's only the switch, where for part of the year the day

        • the last few years

          Isn't it pathetic that full-time politicians need that much time for something so simple?

          Ah, no. That is not the pathetic part.

          The pathetic part is watching Mass Ignorance fail to recognize a Representatives duty to distract.

          That's not a nuisance. They're at work.

    • Every single year. They're never gonna do it

      Until they do do it. Your complaint is identical to that of people in every country which has abolished daylight savings. It takes time to build the critical mass needed for change, and in the runup to that change you see an endless string of comments like yours.

      Since they're never going to do it, I'd support legislation to ban news articles discussing it.

      Self-fulfilling prophecy? Hard to build momentum for change when you're not allowed to discuss it. Are you sure you're not part of a false flag operation funded by Big TimeChangers?

    • Every year for the last several decades same exact news cycle when we spring forward or fall back. Since they're never going to do it...

      The Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966 in the US, to align the DST standard established in 1918. Want to know what DST "Freedom" looked like before then?

      "Iowa once had 23 different pairs of start and end dates throughout the state."

      You know that old saying about giving a man enough rope? Yeah, well there ya go.

      And today, two states (Hawaii and Arizona) do not observe DST (haven't since the 60s), as well as the commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Marina Islands; the U.S. Virgin Islands; Americ

  • We recently had a referendum on the issue in Alberta. Nearly everyone opposes a time change twice a year, but since the question was whether we should keep DST year round, a slim majority of voters shot that down. That doesn't mean they wanted to keep changing the clock. But rather they didn't want DST, which by the way is the exact same as changing our time zone from MST to CST.

    The real issue is that time zones are rarely lined up such that solar noon is at 12pm. Often things are skewed quite far already

    • Standard time matches our circadian rhythms. It is the one we should keep.
    • by edwdig ( 47888 )

      That doesn't mean they wanted to keep changing the clock. But rather they didn't want DST, which by the way is the exact same as changing our time zone from MST to CST.

      It doesn't even necessarily mean that. Over here in New Jersey, EVERYONE complains about how much they hate Daylight Savings Time, and they wish we'd get rid of it. But if you ask them why, it's because they hate how early it gets dark in the winter.

      People here hate Standard Time, but they don't understand how time zones work. "Daylight Savings Time" just means "changing the clocks" to most people. They want to be in Daylight Savings Time permanently, but they don't know how to express it, so things stay as

      • by theCoder ( 23772 )

        It doesn't even necessarily mean that. Over here in New Jersey, EVERYONE complains about how much they hate Daylight Savings Time, and they wish we'd get rid of it. But if you ask them why, it's because they hate how early it gets dark in the winter.

        In Trenton, NJ [timeanddate.com] there's about 9 1/4 hours of daylight on the shortest days, with the daylight hours stretching between 7:17am and 4:36pm. You could get more light later in the day, but that would just make it darker earlier. There's only about 4.5 hours on eith

    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      >The real issue is that time zones are rarely lined up such that solar noon is at 12pm.

      Yes. Finally, someone who gets it. From a practical perspective, the DST change mainly affects two things - work times and school times. Both of those developed based on solar noon being roughly 12 PM. It would be absolute idiocy to go to "permanent DST." Of course, it's idiocy to use DST at all. If people want an extra hour of sunlight after work, convince the boss to let you work 8-4 instead of 9-5.
  • If we just legislate that it could save a lot of electricity that gets wasted on calculating it. lol (yeah, that's a paraphrase of what I read in a Heinlein story)

    P.S. Instead of going for making DST permanent, just say we're ending it. If we want to make that happen then that difference, which isn't a difference, can make a difference.

  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Saturday March 12, 2022 @12:43AM (#62350065)
    Instead of moving the clock forward an hour just move it thirty minutes and next fall donâ(TM)t move it
    • by quall ( 1441799 )

      Every timezone revolves around hours. You are talking about a whole new can of worms.

      I can't imagine living in a new timezone UTC-4.5 that is 30 minutes behind. It would be 10:15am in one state, but 9:45am in the one that is offset 30 minutes. Coordinating appointments would be a nightmare.

  • by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Saturday March 12, 2022 @01:00AM (#62350075)
    Michigan scrap daylight savings in 1967 and then remembered why they had it and brought it back in 1972. Kids start going to school at 8am and it is still dark out in December. You can't suddenly make school start at 9:30 because it throws off all the daycare and everyone's work schedules. In the summer we all want to enjoy the sun being out at 6am (or whenever us programmers wake up). Daylight savings is good for everyone in France, Germany, UK and the USA north of about Boston plus all of Scandinavia and Canada. Traditionally that has been most of the world's wealth. Most of the rest of the USA puts up with it so that their time differences with everyone else stays constant.
    • I live in a state that stretches north to 15 lattitude and south to 35 lattitude. Ish.

      We always vote NO to daylight saving as it's blatantly stupid for a state with such a huge, 20 variance in lattitude and hence dawn/sunset times.

      One political party managed to get a law passed that we'd suffer it for 3 years and then have vote on it.

      That vote shot it down, again.

      Currently that partie's elected representatives can commute to work on a single motorbike... (though this is a decade or so after that DST vote -

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Daylight savings is good for everyone in France, Germany, UK and the USA north of about Boston plus all of Scandinavia and Canada.

      No, it isn't.

      We have a similar discussion in Germany and not one voice is strongly in favour of it. Everyone hates the switching of times.

      It WOULD be a ton easier to have school start an hour later in winter. Not that it really matters so much, how many kids are walking to school through unlit forest anyway?

      • > how many kids are walking to school through unlit forest anyway?

        Not as many as there used to be. Fortunately, the candy-house witch was caught and prosecuted, so it should be safer now.

    • > You can't suddenly make school start at 9:30 because it throws off all the daycare and everyone's work schedules.

      Nonsense. Many businesses have summer and winter hours. In fact, most of them outside the pajama class.

      People with advanced degrees can learn to cope with reality too.

    • I live in Saskatchewan (Canada), and we don't have DST, and the only real problem growing up was that TV programs kept bouncing around twice a year as other places changed their time. Sure, it was dark when we went to school. It just wasn't a problem.

      My friends in other provinces complain about DST twice a year, and we just carry on with life. Heck, even the Yukon (right up beside Alaska) got rid of DST recently. They're slightly north of Michigan.

      The only times I've had issues with DST have occured when I

  • Why not just do "Fall back" every year? I need that extra hour of sleep, and I hate losing an hour of sleep in the stupid "spring forward" stupidity. Just have fall back for fucks sake!

  • Do it boys and girls in DC, get that law passed. I don't think there is a person in the planet that wants daylight savings

  • This thing, which has been going on for years and years, is evidence that our political system is a failure.

    The evidence is in, popular opinion is clear (nobody likes the time switching), the only open issue is a minor item (whether to stay on winter or summer time) - and yet, the people we pay to manage stuff like this can't get it done.

    Why?

    My best guess: There's no powerful lobby interest behind it. Since nobody stands to profit from this law, except of course, all of us, there's no real interest in movin

  • How many times a year to I have to hear about this?

    Oh..right..

  • Permanently on?

    Talk to sleep professionals about it first An extra daylight hour in the evening is ultimately just a convenience that is certainly nice to have, but losing an hour of daylight in the morning, particularly in the winter and in areas further from the equator than about 40 degrees or so, will have very serious health repercussions that are considerably longer in duration than the ill health effects caused by a biannual time shift.

    I'm not suggesting that we keep turning our clocks back and

  • by jim_deane ( 63059 ) on Saturday March 12, 2022 @04:04AM (#62350309) Journal

    Either compromise by making a half hour change and then never changing again, or never leap forward again. Do not keep DST permanently.

    Getting up at night and not having the sun come up for 1-2 hours is murder on me. Every year as spring forward approaches, my circadian rhythm starts to get more normalized right before the stupid 'leap forward' and is then thrown off horribly for almost two months until we get back to that same morning sunrise time.

    Looking at this year's sunrise times, I have a wake-up time that at least lets me see twilight as I'm getting ready 232 days out of the year with regular old DST, with one very negative sleep phase adjustment and one neutral-positive adjustment.
    If we just got rid of DST, it would be 287 days out of the year, but zero adjustments.
    If we had permanent DST, it would only be 182 days, but zero adjustments.

    It's trivial to stay up past sunset (which would be as late as almost 8pm with no DST), but it is excruciating to get up at night to start my day. Please just eliminate DST. Do not adopt it permanently.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The real fix is to change the way we work so that people can get up when it suits them. Many businesses already have flexitime with core hours that employees can work around as they choose.

      • Thanks to COVID many of us live that reality - it's called Working from Home.

        Heck, a colleague of mine is absent for several hours for weekday tennis during 9-5 and no one from management gives a darn as long as that employee does their fair share over a 7 day average.

      • by jwdb ( 526327 )

        The real fix is to change the way we work so that people can get up when it suits them. Many businesses already have flexitime with core hours that employees can work around as they choose.

        Plenty of jobs for which flex time will never be desirable: skilled nursing, for example.

  • Meanwhile, Major Zulu and Captain UTC sit quietly in the back of the cafeteria while the semi-annual food fight breaks out again.

    (Major Zulu) "Do you think they'll ever consider eating at our table to avoid this?"

    (Captain UTC) "Not sure, Sir. We've ate here for decades now. They seem to...enjoy this."

  • Oh please not DLS, just keep the original time.
  • The present "daylight savings" system is too harmful, so generally, I just change my numerical hours. Also, cows still have to be milked.
  • Really, who are the idiots working 24-7 to make everyone's' lives miserable?
  • All the politicians want to be busy bodies and do nothing. All the championing groups want to tell others what to do. Between these two, it's just a ritualistic headline grabber every year. You just c&p last year's article and move on.

    The easiest solution is to amend the old law to allow states to decide if they are on permanent DST. This maybe hard to do but it's easier than the other wasted efforts.

    The next easiest option is to get rid of DST all over and let states decide if and when they want to

  • The science has been here for years.
    For weeks after the time shift there is an increase in:
    Heart attacks, Pulmonary embolisms, Strokes, Car accidents, Trauma.

    There is a decrease in productivity,

    This has been the argument for years to stop this madness, and every year their are lawmakers who bring it up, it makes news for a week and then dies without a vote. Then every year the movement "gains more steam" per the press.

    Report it when it actually goes to a vote.

  • During the era of TV, the U.S. effectively had 2 time zones one hour apart: Pacific+Mountain and Central+East driven by national TV programming. Codifying this and eliminating the annual shift makes the most sense for business. Geographically, over half of the Pacific and Eastern time zones are over ocean.
  • ...is right on schedule, just as it is every year since /. first started.

  • ... when the obligatory /. DST article would show up.
  • Just get rid of the damn trash, and stick to the fucking standard. If you want more time, wake up earlier shit heads
  • The only thing that is going to be permanent is the semi-annual discussions about making DST permanent.

  • I like it how it is.

    I am not a cow, I can adapt to clock changes.

  • One third want DST to be permanent, one third want it to get rid of it, and one third are fine with the current situation. Reaching an agreement is essentially impossible, even though the majority want things to change.

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