Much of America will “fall back” this weekend, racing around the house to dial back their clocks an hour and bracing for the darkness that will fall before the evening commute.
An effort to stick with daylight saving time all year got tantalizingly close to passage this year and remains a live effort in Congress. It means Americans might not be stuck in the annual tradition of losing an hour in March and gaining it back in November.
The Senate approved a bill in March that would make daylight saving time, or DST, permanent next year. It passed by unanimous consent — a surprising piece of bipartisan work in an election year.
The bill has languished in the House. The odds that it reaches President Biden’s desk are slim with the approach of midterm elections and a lame-duck session of Congress, but lawmakers driving the effort said they won’t give up.
“This isn’t a partisan or regional issue; it is a commonsense issue. States all around the country are passing laws to make DST permanent, but Washington, D.C., needs to act,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican and chief sponsor of the Senate bill. “I don’t know why the House refuses to pass this bill — it seems like they are rarely in session — but I will keep pushing to make this a reality.”
A senior House Democratic aide said it is unclear whether the measure will receive a vote between mid-November, when lawmakers return to Washington, and the end of the current Congress.
Proponents of year-round daylight saving time said changing the clocks is disruptive. They also said more natural light after work and school hours would promote economic activity while reducing crime and energy consumption.
It’s also good for recreation. Anyone who’s played Little League knows the extra sunlight is the only thing that lets games stretch into later innings at parks without artificial lighting.
Supporters have long claimed that changing the clocks messes with natural rhythms and leads to increased heart attacks and seasonal depression.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine agrees that changing the clocks is too disruptive but has advocated for permanent standard time — which begins this weekend — instead of permanent daylight saving time.
The academy says permanent standard time aligns best with human circadian biology and has the most benefits for public health and safety.
“It is time to stop changing the time twice per year. We believe that permanent standard time is the best option for health,” the academy said in March.
One of the main drawbacks of daylight saving time is that it makes the early morning hours darker.
Concerns about children heading to school in the dark doomed an effort to make daylight saving time permanent during the Nixon administration in the 1970s, when the clocks were fixed in place to combat soaring energy costs. With popular support dwindling, President Ford signed a bill in 1974 to restore standard time.
Hawaii and Arizona do not observe daylight saving time, although the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona observes it in line with federal practice.
Germany made daylight saving time a national practice to conserve energy supplies during World War I, and other nations followed.
“We don’t need as much oil to heat our homes during morning darkness because many of us are still under the covers in bed,” said Steven Calandrillo, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law who studies the issue. “The energy saving argument is no longer as strong as it was 100 years ago because now a greater portion of our energy dollar goes to cooling instead of heating cost, and DST makes it more difficult to cool our house.”
He said energy concerns now rank behind the potential public safety benefits of maintaining daylight saving time. The evening rush hour tends to be more deadly than the morning rush hour, and a Rutgers University study from 2004 found that a full year of daylight saving time could eliminate nearly 400 deaths of pedestrians and vehicle occupants per year.
Extra daylight in the evening also could reduce crime.
“Criminals like to work in evening darkness, not morning darkness,” Mr. Calandrillo said. “So, DST takes an hour out of criminals’ workday.”
States across the country have been considering moves to full-year standard time.
At least 450 bills on the subject have been introduced in states since 2015. In 2018, Florida became the first state to enact legislation that permanently observes daylight saving time, though the switch is contingent on a change in federal law.
The Rubio bill would allow states to remain locked on standard time, though daylight saving time tends to be more popular.
A CBS News poll in March found that 46% of U.S. residents preferred year-round daylight saving time, 33% wanted year-round standard time and 21% were fine with continuing to switch twice a year.
Some lawmakers just want to settle on either daylight saving or standard time to stop the back-and-forth.
“Congress created daylight saving decades ago as a wartime effort,” Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, said earlier this year. “Now it is well past time to lock the clock and end this experiment.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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