Surprising or even shocking, the Senate today unanimously passed a bill to end Daylight Savings Time, making the last transition to ever occur in 2023. As I understand it, next fall we'll go back on standard time, and will then go back to DST in March of '23 and never change again.
The Senate approved the measure, called the Sunshine Protection Act, unanimously by voice vote. The House of Representatives, which has held a committee hearing on the matter, must still pass the bill before it can go to President Joe Biden to sign.
The White House has not said whether Biden supports it. A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to say if she supports the measure but said she was reviewing it closely.
Senator Marco Rubio, one of the bill's sponsors, said supporters agreed the change would not take place until November 2023 after input from airlines and broadcasters.
Naturally, since the bill came out of the Senate, it will have to go over to the house to be passed (or killed) over there. Should it be modified in the house (my guess is Nancy can't let it just go without personalizing it), it will have to go to a reconciliation committee and endure more "process."
Senator Rubio had a couple of good lines about this. He said,
"I know this is not the most important issue confronting America, but it's one of those issues where there's a lot of agreement," Rubio said. "If we can get this passed, we don't have to do this stupidity anymore. Pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come."
Senator Rubio is one of the bill's sponsors and one of our Florida senators. I know I've talked about this several times, but Florida passed a law back in '18 saying we would stay on DST permanently and never change clocks again, but couldn't actually do so without the Fed.gov granting us that permission. I've heard Senator Rubio say that the only power states have is to stay on standard time. Which seems to imply staying on DST is somehow wrong. I don't have to add that IANAL but this certainly doesn't seem to be a legitimate Federal power to me.
Since 2015, 30 states have introduced legislation to end the twice-yearly changing of clocks, with some states proposing to do it only if neighboring states do the same. A 2019 poll found 71% of Americans prefer to no longer switch their clocks twice a year. The only controversy seems to be if states prefer to stay on standard time year round or stay on DST all year, and if they had asked me (hah!), that's the only change I'd think of, but to paraphrase Rubio, this is one of those issues with wide support and it should pass.
Yeah, you'll have groups in each state that want the opposite times. That's inevitable. In Florida it appears the main tourist industry reps want to stay on DST (which is why the law was passed in '18) while some other groups want the other way. The inevitable physics of the situation is that states get different variations of their amount of sunlight because that varies with latitude. That change in sunlight hours with the seasons is caused by the 23.5 degree inclination of Earth's orbit. Here in the southernmost reaches of the US, (I'm not in the tropics - none of Florida is) we have less variation. On the summer solstice, our day is just short of 14 hours long - 13:55:30. On the winter solstice it's 3 hours 34 minutes shorter, 10:21:43. (source) In Minneapolis, MN, the longest day lengthens to 15:36:48 - just over two hours longer, and the shortest day shortens down to 8:46:12, virtually seven hours shorter than their longest day. Nothing can be done about that. All DST does is change what we call those hours.
This graphic is from Scott Yates, founder of the website called #LockTheClock, and when I checked to see if the site was still there, see that he's running for congress in Colorado with this a key part of his platform.
A couple of days ago, maybe "DST Monday" Mrs. Graybeard and I were talking about DST. I honestly don't remember life before changing the clocks. I'm pretty sure DST came to the state in my life, but I just don't remember what sunrise and sunset times were like all year without it. The only thing I can think of (prodding myself) was when they did a "double DST" moving clocks forward two hours, during the '70s OPEC oil crisis. I'm pretty sure of that.
I just wish they would have stayed on Standard Time. This is still better than swapping, though. Wonder what kind of country we'll have by the time this is implemented?
ReplyDeleteAgree! Noon is when the Sun is at its zenith for that time zone and all the other hours are measured from that. How much daylight is Alaska saving, especially in winter? The fed controls everything, Constitution be damned.
DeleteI remember walking to school in Anchorage in pitch darkness in winter, and then walking home after skating class in pitch darkness.
DeleteHow about we all just go to Coordinated Universal Time (aka Zulu; aka GMT)and quit this screwing around with the clocks? As a navigator for both air and seaborne craft, I've been operating on Zulu time for over 60 years without any problem.
ReplyDeleteSo the dawn of a new day has no meaning? I suppose somewhere on earth it would signify the end of the day under Zulu time?
DeleteAs I mention elsewhere, I'm partial to oldvet1950's point that solar noon - the sun on the meridian for your location - is a long established definition.
DeleteAs a ham and shortwave radio hobbyist, I've been using UTC for nearly the same 60 years. To some degree what you call the time doesn't matter, which is your argument, anonymous@1244AM. On the other hand, at some point, you're calling noon midnight which is something like calling blue red. Those words have historical meaning that I'd like to see preserved.
Another artifact of being an old fart.
Grossly mislabelled, SiG.
ReplyDeleteThe Senate didn't end DST.
The just set it in concrete, after casting it in iron.
This is High Jackassery of the foulest sort.
WhoTF asked for that?
Literally no one.
Government, doing what it does best: screwing everyone.
I screwed up and didn't include the data I saw that talked about the number of states that want to stay on DST ("summer time"), but it was the majority, including your state and mine. Of the 30 states who don't want to change clocks 19 of them want to stay on DST year 'round instead of standard time.
DeleteThe thing is, any state that wants to switch over to standard time and never change clocks again can do it now. That's perfectly legal for them to do.
It's staying on DST year round that requires an act of congress. So passing this bill is really saying any state can do whatever they want.
Personally, I like solar noon to be noon: standard time. Around here sunrise and sunset are around 6:30, summer days are longer, winter days are shorter, about an hour and a half each extreme. FWIW - which ain't much.
A good post, and it's about time. (I crack myself up.)
ReplyDeleteStopping the time change has been long overdue.
Going to permanent DST is a crock. They should have taken the U.S. back to Standard Time this fall and not changed next year.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid till I was almost through college, we were on Standard Time and it was no problem. The 1973 Oil Crisis changed that. BTW, SiG, it was only a one hour change then as far as I could find out.
Arizona will not be happy if this goes through. They are on permanent standard time. After living there from 1974 to 1975 (AF Pilot Training), I understand why. Sunset was a desired event because it cooled off quickly afterwards.
In the time since the post last night, I think I remembered the conclusion it was the year they did DST all year long and I just thought of the DST in December as doubly late.
DeleteOn the DST thing, there's a subtlety there: any state can decide (by whatever process the state constitution says) to go off DST and stay on standard time whenever they want. The law is only required for the states that want to stay on DST year round.