So, where does that leave the issue now?
At the beginning of this month, a bill to make daylight-saving time permanent was reintroduced in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and cosponsored by a bipartisan group of 14 senators.
Another bill with the same title was introduced a week later on March 8 in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.).
Both bills have been referred to committees, but one of them would need to pass both houses before it can be signed into law. Similar bills have been introduced several times previously without success.
Daylight-saving time was first introduced in the U.S. in World War I, though it was nationally abolished after the war ended. According to the Congressional Research Service, a few states continued to observe the practice, and in 1966 nationwide daylight-saving time was made official with the Uniform Time Act.
Why do it? For places away from the equator, sunrise and sunset times vary significantly over the course of the year, but the times that people go to work and school do not. Daylight saving was introduced, in part, to keep people’s schedules closer to the available daylight hours.
But supporters of ending the clock change list a number of benefits, including reducing car crashes and improving health.
Doctors with Kettering Health Network’s Sleep Centers said that the clock change poses special problems for sleep.
“If we change the clock on our wall correctly and keep our same sleep times, we lose an hour of sleep,” Dr. Michael Bonnet, the clinical director of the Sleep Center at Sycamore Medical Center in Miamisburg, said in 2016.
“But for many of us the time change means sleeping an hour later on Sunday morning and putting off the change to Sunday night. If we still go to bed and get up at our typical clock times on Sunday, our body sees this as going to bed an hour earlier and getting up an hour earlier.”
Bonnet said that the change also poses a problem due to the timing of the sunrise.
“As a result, people may once again be driving to work or school in the dark again or into the rising sun,” he said. “We could see an increase in auto accidents, an increase in bad moods, and other problems on Monday morning.”
About the Author
