Photo: Getty
At 2 a.m. local time on the second Sunday of March, clocks around the country will “spring forward” one hour to 3 a.m., marking the start ofdaylight saving timeand the end of standard time.
For decades, this shift has cost Americans a valuable hour of their weekend that they won’t see again until clocks move back during the first Sunday of November. But an end to the tradition may be closer than ever before.
According toUSA Today, the federal government first enacted daylight saving to conserve coal during World War I in the spring of 1918. But President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration didn’t make it law until nearly 50 years later with the Uniform Time Act. Since then, daylight saving has increased from six months to its current eight-month span.
TheDepartment of Transportationcontinues to observe daylight saving because it reportedly saves energy, cuts down on traffic accidents and reduces crime.
In recent years, there have been calls to end the twice-yearly time change, with one of the more vocal critics being Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
Rubio, a Republican, is endorsing the “Sunshine Protection Act,” which would make daylight saving time permanent, essentially making it the new “standard time.”
“Why are we still doing this time change thing? It’s time to pass my bill and make daylight savings time permanent,” Rubiotweetedin November.
The bill has 16 cosponsors from around the country, including Democrats Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
RELATED VIDEO: Things To Know About Daylight Saving
Pennsylvania State Rep. Russ Diamond called on his local government to “end the outdated ritual” of “springing forward and falling back” in a March 2021memo.
“Daylight Saving Time (DST), launched during World War I as an attempt to save energy, has outlived its usefulness,” he said, in part. “Changing clocks twice every year simply because ‘we’ve always done it that way’ is not enough reason to continue the practice.”
States likeHawaii and Arizonado not observe daylight saving, and in 2018, nearly60 percent of California residentsvoted to make it permanent. Yet, the state still recognizes it four years later due to “limbo” in the state’s Legislature, KTLA reported.
Tufts University professor Michael Downing authored a book about the daylight saving controversies,Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. In aninterviewwith the university in 2015, Downing predicted daylight saving is here to stay.
“Every 20 years Congress gives us another month, extending daylight saving,” he explained. “We’re now up to eight months, so standard time we only have for four months a year — which tells us that literally speaking, daylight saving has become our standard time.”
“I don’t think it’s ever going away,” he added.
source: people.com
