Time Zone Report

Following Daylight Saving Time legislation in the US

Who Is Proposing What?

So there are nine states with active DST-related legislation.  With two new states last week, who can keep up?  Here’s the simplest review we can give you…

Proposals to DROP Daylight Saving Time

This is, by far, the most popular proposal in the land.

Alaska

There are three bills here, all proposing to drop DST. There’s one in the House and one in the Senate with start dates of 2017, which would keep the state on DST for two more years before dropping it.  One bill in the Senate would start 2016, keeping the state on DST for only one more year before going “standard time, all the time”.

Oregon

The legislature here is proposing to put a referendum vote to the people on the next general election ballot, later this year.  If approved, Oregon would continue to observe DST through 2020, and not observe DST in 2021.  There’s another catch: if California or Washington vote sooner to go to no-DST year round, Oregon would make the switch earlier.

South Dakota

While there’s no implementation attached to this latest of DST-free proposals, we’re hoping they’ll amend the bill to go one more year on DST, then none for 2016.

There is, however, an oddity in the bill as proposed, which reads: “South Dakota elects to reject daylight savings time and elects to continue use in force standard time, or summer hours.”  What is the intention of the last 3 words?  Time Zone Report has written to the bill’s sponsor for clarification, but no answer yet.

Texas

There are two bills in consideration by the Texas House, both proposing to abolish DST.

One of the bills, as written, would drop DST effective September 1, 2015.  Why they’d drop DST in the middle of the DST season is a mystery. We’re hoping they amend the bill to make it effecting January 1, 2016.

But there’s another bill that wants to establish a task force first.  This is what Utah did in 2014, but apparently Texas wants to do their own survey. This task force would report back to later than December 2016 (Utah did their survey in one year; apparently since “everything is bigger in Texas” it’ll take them longer to do this step). There’s nothing here that says when the “no DST” would take effect if requested, but maybe they’re leaving everything up to the task force, including selecting an implementation date.

Utah

There is one bill in the Utah House that would just make Daylight Saving Time a thing of the past in the state. As currently written, this bill would take effect March 7, 2015, one day before DST is supposed to start this year. No more DST.  But there’s one bill in the state’s Senate — see more on Utah below.

Washington

The state of Washington has a bill in their House to stay on Pacific Standard Time throughout the year.  Similar to South Dakota, there’s no implementation attached to this legislation, and we’re hoping they’ll amend the bill to go one more year on DST, then none for 2016.

But like Utah, there’s another bill under consideration. See Washington again, below.

Proposals for Year-Round DST

Keep in mind states are not actually permitted to go on Year-Round DST, according to federal statutes.

Florida & Mississippi

There’s a bill in each of these state’s Senate to adopt Year-Round DST effective summer of 2015.

Washington

Technically, the state of Washington isn’t declaring a wish to go to Year-Round DST.  What they are doing is asking the US Congress and President to change the federal statute to permit states to choose Year-Round DST as an option.

The legislation in House Joint Memorial 4001 crafted by Representative Joe Schmick is, in my opinion, the best and only appropriate request relating to Year-Round DST in the entire United States – not just this year, but for the entire period I have been researching US DST legislation, from 2010 to present.

If every state sent this legislative message to the President and Congress, it would have a better chance of getting their attention. Think of Doctor Seuss’s “Horton Hears a Who”, where it took just one more tiny, small voice for the village of Whoville to be heard.

Change Time Zone

New Mexico

This state is asking the US Department of Transportation to move them from the Mountain time zone to the Central time zone, and then they would stay on Central Standard Time year-round.  Except then they’re proposal to call the state’s time “Mountain Daylight Saving Time”.  Here at Time Zone Report, we don’t think this will fly with the US DOT, and is likely to be disapproved.

Utah

If you’re thinking you already read about Utah, you’re right: above, they’re proposing to drop DST like “right now”. But in the state’s Senate there is “Senate Concurrent Resolution 1” which asks the US Department of Transportation to move them from the Mountain time zone to the Central Time Zone.  Unlike New Mexico’s proposal, they seem prepared to just call it “Central Standard Time” if the US DOT approves it.

Adopting DST

Arizona (Withdrawn)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include my home state of Arizona, where legislation was filed on January 6, 2015 to adopt Daylight Saving Time in the state. In less than a week, the sponsor withdrew the bill.

Arizona is currently one of only two states not doing DST, and we’ve been DST-free since 1968. The bill’s sponsor said “I thought it was time we considered it again”.  Fortunately the bill was withdrawn after public pressure, which included a Twitter campaign from user @NoDSTinAZ.

And from that success, Time Zone Report was born.

Updated: February 10, 2015 — 6:36 am

7 Comments

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  1. Washington state needs to go on DST all year round not Standard time. This is crap about more heart attacks occurring when we change clocks. If we went to Standard Time all year round there will be much more traffic fatalities in the spring and summer especially when it gets darker 1 hour earlier. The Washington State Patrol would agree with me on this. Little leagues start in March. DST is safer for our children walking home from school in the fall and the real young ones trick or treating on October 31. Let’s think about the safety of our young ones before we do something stupid by going to standard time all year round.

    1. DST all year is the worst idea. Why would a state want their clocks to be wrong all year long? It’s bad enough that people don’t even know what “noon,” “am,” “pm,” “midnight,” etc. mean anymore (hint: midnight means the middle of the night). Halfway between sunrise and sunset, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, is noon, and halfway between sunset and sunrise is the middle of the night. Adjust clocks as such (standardizing them to the nearest central meridian is okay to “round” to the nearest hour) and keep them there, that’s the time where you live.

      Not to mention that not everyone who isn’t comfortable with the heat and sun of long summer days wants to go into work (or wherever) so early in the morning after having to wait until the sun sets the evening before to just be able to be comfortable going outside.

    2. All you would do is move the darkness from the evening hours to the early morning hours during the winter months, should DST remain in effect year round. This is because in the fall and winter the days are shorter. Therefore, if you keep the clocks ahead there will be 8 a.m or even later sunrises in most states, with people commuting to work or school in the darkness.

    3. Yeah kids will have a safer halloween or walk home from school in the evening, but what about the morning? If you keep DST past november, they’ll be walking to school every morning in the darkness as the sun will rise at 8 am or later and schools start classes around that time.

  2. This is confusing having every state deal with dropping DST. DST should be dropped at the federal level. Two thirds of the country of the world don’t observe DST.
    http://wedontneeddst.com/

  3. My state, Nevada, has it wrong by wanting extra hot sun in the afternoon instead of normal Standard Time like Arizona, Hawaii, and a number of other states who are considering Standard Time. Here in the desert, it is hot 9 months of the year. Those who party or play golf want the extra hour of sun despite impacting negatively on our kids in the morning. My wife and I are considering moving if this happens since right now DST keeps the sun out past 8 at night, but the temps are still in the 90s at midnight.

  4. As the Old Indian Chief once said, “Only the white man thinks that by cutting off one foot of the blanket and sewing it to the other end will give him a longer blanket.” If people are that worried about working in the heat then just go in an hour earlier… or later. And the argument about everyone getting hit by cars because it gets dark out, well, give me a break. I say there’s a built in hazard to changing clocks twice a year because many of those clocks can’t be reached without standing on a wobbly dining room chair! Make Standard Time the national law and stop all this silliness!

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