Daylight Savings: The Senate approved legislation on Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent in the United States beginning in 2023. The Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 was approved unanimously, but it still needs House approval and President Biden’s signature before it becomes law.
For those hoping to put an end to annual clock shifting, this latest push in Congress may be better late than never.
“We don’t have to keep doing stupid things like this any longer. And I’m not sure why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long “Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the bill’s sponsors, stated on the Senate floor.
“Hopefully, this will be the year that it is completed. And, excuse the pun, but this is a concept whose time has come “He continued.
US getting rid of Daylight Savings
According to the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, there are no immediate plans to vote on daylight saving time, but the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on it last week and there is bipartisan support for it.
Daylight saving time began as an attempt to pack more hours of sunlight into the day during the summertime and reduce energy consumption, though critics question how effective it has been in that regard.
Instead, experts say that changing our clocks twice a year has increased by lack of sleep and other health issues. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates for a national clock that is operational all year.
Daylight saving time currently accounts for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder referred to as standard time.
According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, 63 percent of U.S. adults want to do away with the biannual clock change. It was also discovered that more people favor permanently instituting daylight saving time rather than the standard time.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 18 states have passed legislation to permanently switch to daylight saving time over the last four years, though federal law must first be changed to allow it.
This is huge: the Senate just PASSED my bipartisan bill, the Sunshine Protection Act, to make #DaylightSavingTime permanent.
We’re one step closer to never having to change our clocks again—good riddance. 🌞 pic.twitter.com/1eW6Zc6Fqa
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) March 15, 2022
How does Daylight Saving Time function?
The majority of Americans change their timers for Daylight Saving Time twice a year. Every year, the change takes place on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. To minimize disruption, the shift is always performed on the weekend at 2:00 a.m.
“Spring forward, fall back,” goes the saying, so in the spring you turn your clock forward one hour and in the autumn you turn your clock back an hour. The time change allows people to take advantage of more daylight during the summer, saving energy and reducing traffic accidents and crime.
Who doesn’t do Daylight Savings?
Only Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Saving Time.
Arizona began experimenting with the change in 1918 but decided to discontinue it permanently in 1968. Although the state observes Standard Time, the Navajo Nation, a Native American territory in the state’s northeast that also borders New Mexico and Utah, observes Daylight Saving Time twice a year.
The only other state that does not currently observe Daylight Saving Time is Hawaii. They, like the other US territories in the Pacific and Caribbean Seas, are close enough to the equator that there is no massive distinction in sunrise and sunset times throughout the year, so changing the hour has no benefit.
Why do we set our clocks ahead for Daylight Saving Time?
Benjamin Franklin, who was living in Paris at the time, is credited with the first suggestion of adjusting our clocks to reap the benefits of the longer summer days. However, it was a British builder named William Willett who proposed the idea to Parliament as a way for the country as a whole to make better use of daylight.
However, to save energy during the First World War, Germany was the first to implement seasonal time changes. By 1918, most European nations, the United States, and the United Kingdom, as well as their allies, had adopted Daylight Saving Time. However, many nations abandoned the system in the years following the war, only to reintroduce it when there was a need to conserve energy.
Is it true that Daylight Saving Time saves energy?
Daylight Saving Time is credited with reducing crime because people are doing activities in the daylight, which gives criminals fewer opportunities, as well as saving lives and trying to prevent traffic accidents. The main reason for the twice-yearly switch, however, is the energy savings it is said to provide. According to a 1975 study conducted by the US Department of Transportation, the US experienced nearly a 1% daily savings on energy use during the yearly Daylight Saving Time period.
However, those findings have been contradicted by a more recent analysis conducted in 2006, when Indiana implemented statewide Daylight Saving Time. Researchers discovered that residential energy consumption increased by about 1%. They speculated that, despite the fact that less lighting is required, the longer summer evenings resulted in an increase in AC usage in households across the state.
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