Most Americans have recently put their clocks forward one hour for Daylight Saving Time, making our evenings lighter and our mornings darker.
But the semi-annual transition of our watches could end now that the Senate has passed the Sunshine Protection Act, originally introduced in 2018 by Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Last year he reintroduced the bill, which has the backing of lawmakers from both major political parties.
The bill would keep daylight saving time year-round and come into effect next year. It will now go to the House of Representatives for approval before President Joe Biden can sign it.
In a press release about the law, lawmakers cited health, economic and public safety benefits for the change, such as: B. the potential for an increase in consumer spending and a reduction in car accidents.
Hawaii and Arizona – with the exception of the Navajo Nation – do not observe daylight saving time. Neither does the US Territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands.
Michael Downing, the late author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, told Marketplace that Daylight Saving Time began during World War I.
A Briton named Willliam Willett devised the plan after observing that people slept through “precious hours of daylight” in the summer,” Downing said.
The British Parliament was skeptical about a time difference and debated its merits for a decade.
However, Germany embraced the idea after hearing about it and became the first country to enact a Daylight Saving Time law. His goal was to conserve energy for war.
“The Brits were so embarrassed that they had debated it for ten years, they immediately embraced it,” Downing said.
The United States introduced its own Daylight Saving Time law in 1918. Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma argued that “it’s long past time to lock the clock and end this experiment.”
David Wagner, associate professor of management at the University of Oregon, is excited about the move, saying it’s “a long time coming.”
Many states have pushed for laws that would stop clock changes by sticking to either Daylight Saving Time or Standard Time.
This step is important because it would keep us from putting our clocks back and forth, not because having that extra hour of sunlight is inherently better, Wagner explained.
And these shifts can be harmful. Wagner, along with other researchers, conducted studies on the subject and found that after the switch to daylight saving time, there was an increase in work-related accidents due to lack of sleep.
Coal mine injuries increased nearly 6% Monday after the changeover, and workers also saw an approximately 67% increase in days lost to these injuries, according to the work of Wagner and Christopher M. Barnes.
Dan Phaneuf, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s unclear whether it would be better to work with daylight saving time rather than standard time year-round.
But compared to changing the clock twice a year, he thinks it’s a good decision.
Permanent operation according to DST has its own advantages and disadvantages. As you might expect, Wagner summed it up like this: “It’s complicated.”
Businesses have the advantage of seeing increased buying activity when there is an extra hour of sunlight.
“It’s been a remarkably effective retail spending plan,” Downing told us in 2018. “If you give Americans some sunlight after work, they tend to stop and shop on the way home.”
Downing said it is particularly beneficial to retail sectors such as outdoor sports, leisure, home repairs, landscaping and gardening.
Steve Calandrillo, a University of Washington law professor who has testified before Congress about the merits of ending these shifts, said via email that an extra hour of sunlight would reduce the number of vehicle deaths and accidents, noting that even pedestrians are vulnerable to being hit by cars at dusk.
However, there are some misconceptions about Daylight Saving Time, such as For example, the notion that it helps save energy, although researchers find little evidence to support this.
Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant, looking at the state of Indiana, found that daylight saving time actually increased demand for household electricity and added an additional $9 million per year to utility bills due to the additional heating and cooling usage up.
And the US Chamber of Commerce, Downing says, created the myth that farmers would benefit from daylight saving time even though they hated it because they lost an hour of daylight in the morning.
Some health experts agree that we should stop changing the clocks — and instead make standard time permanent.
In a press release, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine stated that “the current evidence best supports the establishment of a year-round standard time that best matches human circadian biology and has clear public health and safety benefits.”
While Calandrillo advocates permanent DST, he said darker mornings would “pose additional dangers … especially for school children.” To address those concerns, school terms should start later in the winter to accommodate the children, he added.
Wagner also agrees that we should be “more thoughtful” about back-to-school times, pointing out that children are more awake later in the day.
Early school start times are not only a public health problem, but it also makes economic sense to switch to later school start times. According to Brian Jacob, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, who co-authored a study on the subject, changing start times is one of the most cost-effective ways schools have to improve student performance.
“It’s not like hiring extra teachers to reduce class size or building a big new expensive building,” he told Marketplace in 2014.
California has a starting signal. In 2019, it became the first state to mandate that middle and high schools have later start times. The law will come into effect in the 2022-2023 school year.
Permanent Daylight Saving Time is likely to reignite this debate.
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