Admittedly, there are more important issues that demand discussion. But for the next couple days, daylight saving will receive plenty of attention.
At 2 a.m. Sunday, our clocks will spring ahead to 3 a.m., adjusting to daylight saving time in the latest iteration of a biannual clock-changing ritual. This being the digital age, phones and other devices will automatically change, leaving a handful of clocks around the house to be manually altered.
For Washington residents, this might seem archaic — and perplexing. In 2019, the Legislature passed a bill approving permanent daylight saving time in the state and removing the time changes. Oregon and California have passed similar laws, but putting them into effect will require an act of Congress.
Currently, states may unilaterally stay on standard time throughout the year, as Hawaii and Arizona have chosen to do. But daylight saving time requires congressional approval, which has led to annual proposals followed by a lack of action. In 2022, the Senate passed such a bill, but it failed to make it through the House of Representatives. This year, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., have reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act with the support of 13 other senators.
“Every year, more Americans grow more frustrated setting their clocks back and forth, and every winter folks in Washington state despair at the prospect of losing an hour of precious sunlight when we are forced off Daylight Saving Time,” Senator Murray stated in a press release. “This is about public health, it is about our economy, and it’s about just putting a little more light in families’ lives so they can spend time together, outdoors, in the sunshine.”
President Donald Trump has said he supports halting the changing of the clocks, but thus far only has concepts of a plan. And he seems to prefer year-round standard time. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate daylight saving time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!,” he wrote on social media. “Daylight saving time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
Research shows that the change also can be costly to our health. Various studies have found that changing the clocks contributes to heart attacks and strokes, an increase in car crashes and harmful sleep disruptions. Altering our circadian rhythms leads to temporary grogginess.
But the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has recommended standard time. “Permanent, year-round standard time is the best choice to most closely match our circadian sleep-wake cycle,” Dr. M. Adeel Rishi of the Mayo Clinic said. “Daylight saving time results in more darkness in the morning and more light in the evening, disrupting the body’s natural rhythm.”
Given all of that, we can’t help but wonder how we landed in this mess. Daylight saving apparently started as a method for saving energy by aligning waking hours with the sunlight hours. If it’s not dark out, you are less likely to turn on the lights.
Over time, that resulted in patchwork laws that varied from state to state and were confusing to anybody who crossed state lines — like those in the transportation industry. So, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established national standards and defined when daylight saving time would begin and end in all the states.
Whether it’s standard time or daylight saving, Congress probably should shed some light on the issue. Then again, they have more important things to worry about.
