WASHINGTON – Something historic could take place when you set the clock ahead tonight.
It may be the last time you ever do it – unless your clock breaks or battery dies.
There’s legislation in Washington and several states to make Daylight Saving Time permanent – though it won’t be called DST. It will become Daylight Standard Time – a permanent change of the clock. No more switching back and forth, no more confusion, no more spending time adjusting dozens of clocks in your house or office.
Most Americans don’t even remember when Congress passed the so-called Uniform Time Act in 1966 to bring some order to the system – and not every state or territory ever adopted it. Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are among the places that reject it.
The idea started in Germany during World War I and began, sometimes haphazardly, being adopted in the U.S. circa 1966 – 53 years ago. Since 2007, DST has begun on the second Sunday in March and ended on the first Sunday in November.
Just to be clear, it’s not DST that is under fire. It’s standard time.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., last week reintroduced a bill to make Daylight Saving Time a year-round reality across the country, with no more biannual time changes.
The plan has nothing to do with saving energy or saving the planet from catastrophic climate change that will, according to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, destroy humanity in the next 12 years.
The questions are simply whether it’s worth the hassles twice a year, some arguable negative health effects and whether we can all get on the same clock year round.
A 2016 study found evidence that the switch back to standard time in the fall is associated with a spike in diagnoses of depression. A study published in Europe in 2018 found a “modest” increase in heart attacks after the clocks change, with the effect more pronounced during the springtime shift.
Rubio and other advocates for year-round DST say it promotes public safety. A 2015 report published in the Review of Economics and Statistics found that extra daylight in the evening after the switch to DST led to a drop in crime that was not offset by increased crime during the darker morning hours.
“[R]obbery rates didn’t increase in the morning, even though those hours were darker — apparently, criminals aren’t early risers,” researchers Jennifer Doleac and Nicholas Sanders wrote in a Brookings Institution article.
“Studies have shown many benefits of a year-round Daylight Saving Time, which is why Florida’s legislature overwhelmingly voted to make it permanent last year. Reflecting the will of the State of Florida, I’m proud to reintroduce this bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationally,” Rubio said in a statement.
But what if the bill passes and President Donald Trump is asked to sign it?
Will Trump Derangement Syndrome kick in?
Then again, in 2011 Russia declared it would stay on DST all year long, then abandoned the plan in 2014 to Daylight Standard Time.
So, don’t get excited about a historic change just yet.
