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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / More Daylight Savings

More Daylight Savings

by John Cole|  July 20, 200510:55 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

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Daylight Savings Time is changing:

It looks like Daylight Saving Time is about to be extended, and that has child safety and fire prevention advocates riled.

Congressional leaders of both parties have signed off on a proposal, being considered in Washington this week, to start Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday of November. They say it would save energy.

If the president signs the bill, the new law would take effect immediately, extending Daylight Saving Time by one month this fall. Currently, Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April and ends at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October.

“The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the measure with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

The pair cited a government study that estimated the additional energy savings at the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day, or about half of 1 percent of the nation’s daily oil consumption. Most of the energy saved would be in the form of electricity because lights would be used less in the early evenings, the study projected.

I guess it takes less effort to screw with everyone’s clocks than it does to eliminate the tax break for SUV’s, re-examine CAFE standards (which they should either update or just get rid of the damned things and quit pretending) or any number of other things. Something tells me those measures wouldn’t be greeted very fondly in Michigan.

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Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    JonBuck

    July 20, 2005 at 10:59 pm

    This is going to seriously screw up some computer timekeeping hardware…

  2. 2.

    Zifnab

    July 20, 2005 at 11:09 pm

    To be fair, yes it is easier than cuting SUV tax-breaks and re-examining CAFE standards. That said, it would be nice to do all three. But we have to start somewhere regardless. I don’t see a reason why we wouldn’t want to do this. At the very least it shows that when the opposition is nearly non-existant and upsets almost no one, Congress can effect progressive change and reform.

  3. 3.

    JPS

    July 20, 2005 at 11:20 pm

    “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

    He can give us more daylight through legislation?

  4. 4.

    wild bird

    July 20, 2005 at 11:23 pm

    Good greif why cant these damn politicians leave well enough alone a mean its enough we have to reset our clocks ever october and april now they are trying to do this? its like when they tried to force the metric system on us

  5. 5.

    aaronpacy

    July 20, 2005 at 11:24 pm

    Good….now our fat children can play outside for a while longer. Lose that weight fatty!!

  6. 6.

    Tractarian

    July 20, 2005 at 11:27 pm

    Something tells me those measures wouldn’t be greeted very fondly in Michigan.

    This measure shouldn’t be too much more popular… after all it will result in 9:00 AM sunrises in November.

  7. 7.

    Jimmy Jazz

    July 20, 2005 at 11:44 pm

    “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,’’

    I was reaaaaaaaallllly hoping this was an Onion article.

  8. 8.

    Bernard Yomtov

    July 20, 2005 at 11:54 pm

    This is reminiscent of the time (late 70’s?) Congress passed a nationwide right turn on red law, on the theory that drivers wasted a lot of gas waiting uselessly for the light to change. As I recall this as the brainchild of Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, who thought of it when, surprise, he was caught in traffic waiting to turn right.

    So far as I know it’s still the law, unless there is a sign at the intersection specifically prohibiting right turn on red.

    I actually like daylight savings time, though I’m dubious of its energy saving value.

  9. 9.

    John S.

    July 20, 2005 at 11:56 pm

    What would be even better is if we made a giant mirror that could orbit around the Earth opposite the sun, that way we could have daylight 24 hours a day. Then we could really save on energy costs, which would allow GM to unveil their latest V12 Hummer that gets 3 mpg.

    Now that’s progress!

  10. 10.

    ppGaz

    July 21, 2005 at 12:11 am

    My state does not participate in Daylight Saving Time.

    One half of one percent of oil consumption? What’s next? A law prohibiting the use of night lights?

    How about checking our refrigerators to make sure the light goes off when we close the door?

    It’s good to know that our government cares deeply about energy.

  11. 11.

    Mr.Ortiz

    July 21, 2005 at 12:13 am

    You know who would be really pissed? Mexico. They just started observing daylight savings a few years ago to facilitate commerce with the US, and now we’re changing the rules on ’em.

    Seriously though, this would leave a little over 3 months of non-daylight-savings time per year. Might as well go for the whole year at that point and just call it “time”.

  12. 12.

    Pan is a non...

    July 21, 2005 at 12:25 am

    Apparently God is speaking to the president again, and telling him to ‘make more daylight’.

  13. 13.

    Bob

    July 21, 2005 at 12:31 am

    The CBC actually did a story on it on their evening news show. Like JonBuck, the first thing I thought was that it would screw up computers, but I imagine Bill Gates could sell us an upgrade for that.

  14. 14.

    Bruce

    July 21, 2005 at 12:57 am

    Do these “people” actually believe people won’t turn their lights on in the extra hour of darkness in the morning? You cannot create any more daylight than the rotation of the earth allows, and they are just shuffling when the energy gets used, but not how much.

  15. 15.

    Steve

    July 21, 2005 at 1:12 am

    Bob Novak can’t be pleased about this.

  16. 16.

    Gold Star for Robot Boy

    July 21, 2005 at 1:20 am

    As an Arizonan, I say you can have my watch when you rip it from my cold, dead wrist.

  17. 17.

    arnott

    July 21, 2005 at 3:50 am

    whats wrong with you ? Bush nominated Roberts for Supreme court, the media (including u) are supposed to forget Rovegate and talk about Roberts only :)

  18. 18.

    p.lukasiak

    July 21, 2005 at 7:06 am

    I’m all for this change.

    Where I grew up, there was a tacit agreement in the neighborhood that trick or treating ended when it got dark. (yeah, I know that sounds bizarre to a lot of people, but….) Daylight Savings Time always ended the weekend before Hallowe’en, and it always pissed me off that I lost an hour of getting free candy from the neighbors because they couldn’t hold back that rule for one more lousy week. :)

  19. 19.

    platosearwax

    July 21, 2005 at 7:54 am

    I fail to see why people get all bent out of shape about this, one way or another. I grew up in the US and never thought much about sunrises and sunsets until I moved to Norway, where in the winter we get sunrises at 9:30am and sunsets at 3:30pm and in the summer it is light damn near all night. And as far as I can tell, everyone survives.

    My only wish is that Europe and the US would get on the same page on this. It makes telephone calls in March and October dicey as you aren’t sure how early you are calling.

  20. 20.

    Kathy Cole

    July 21, 2005 at 8:00 am

    I heard both the Halloween argument and extended light on election day as arguments for extending daylight savings. However, that argues for second weekend in November, rather than all the way to Thanksgiving; I’m one likely to see 830 or later sunrises in late November if this is passed, and that would suck.

  21. 21.

    Doug

    July 21, 2005 at 10:11 am

    Indiana’s new governor Mitch Daniels just forced through a Daylight Saving Time bill through the Indiana General Assembly by the thinnest of margins. Part of the deal to get it through was that Daniels would petition the US Dept. of Transportation to reevaluate Indiana’s time zone. He did kind of a half-assed job and the USDOT isn’t going to hold the requested hearings. I think the potential for extending to DST in November will add to Daniels’ political difficulties on the subject.

    Currently Indiana is mostly in the eastern time zone with the exception of the northwest corner and the southwest corner. As purely a matter of math and geometry, Indiana should be in the Central Time Zone. (Just going 15 degrees per time zone with Greenwich, England in the center of the first time zone, the eastern/central time zone line should fall just west of Columbus, Ohio.) In the middle of summer, on EDT, the sun will be directly overhead in Indianapolis at about 2:00 p.m.

    Anyway, Hoosiers are funny about their time. Switching to DST was a near thing. Not getting promised hearings on the proper time zone will stir the pot. Having even more DST should add to things.

    I’ve been somewhat obsessive about the issue, I’m afraid. I would be surprised if anyone cared, but more info is at: http://blog.masson.us — if you run a search on “daylight saving” in the search box, you can get a pretty good rundown of how the issue progressed this year.

  22. 22.

    Emma Zahn

    July 21, 2005 at 11:27 am

    Switching back and forth twice a year is idiotic. Why not split the difference one time. This fall we could move back 1/2 hour and be done with it — forever.

    BTW, like others above Congressman Markey’s comment made me laugh out loud:

    “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use”

    Oh, really?

  23. 23.

    Veeshir

    July 21, 2005 at 2:17 pm

    This really screws up, “Spring ahead, fall back”.
    “Winter ahead, fall back” just doesn’t cut it.

    “March ahead” works pretty well, but there’s just nothing that makes sense with “November”.

  24. 24.

    Bruce Moomaw

    July 21, 2005 at 10:32 pm

    Why the hell don’t they simply do what the Carter Admininstration did briefly, and institute DST all year round? That way we can all skip the enchanting experience of having the world go black at 5 PM throughout the winter, which throws a lot of people (including my mother) into Seasonal Affective Depression, and doesn’t do much for the spirits of the rest of us either. (The fact that Carter folded on this the instant he got any complaints from schools about their pupils “having to go to school in the dark” — instead of responding by suggesting that the schools simply reset their own operating hours — is further proof that Jimmy Carter could have been successfully mugged through the mail.)

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