Status Summary

2016: All three bills were reintroduced for the 2016 session.

Time Zone Report is calling all Washington state bills “dead” at this point, since no bill has been referred out of the assigned committee to the Rules committee, and the legislative deadline is approaching. If any of these bills sees additional activity before the end of the legislative session, we’ll update as necessary.

Two bills proposing to eliminate DST:

HB 1479 pre-filed January 9, 2015 and sponsored by Representative Scott amends state code to follow Pacific Standard Time throughout the calendar year.
SB 5570 sponsored by Senators McCoy, Darneille, and Hasegawa mirrors HB 1479.

One Memorial (not changing any legislation) is active in the Washington House of Representatives:

HJM 4001 sponsored by Representatives Schmick and Stanford requests permission to allow sates adopt DST on a year-round basis.

Legislation Intent

HB 1479

This bill would essentially abolish DST in the state of Washington. The legislation, as introduced, does not mention an implementation date. Ostensibly, if this legislation is adopted this session, it could trigger the elimination of DST immediately, meaning that the state would not observe DST in March of 2015.

However, the House Bill Analysis document indicates that the bill would take effect “90 days after adjournment of the session in which the bill is passed.” So the bill’s effective date would depend on the date the legislature adjourns the current legislative session.

SB 5570

This bill is the Senate version of HB 1479. In our opinion, the presence of similar bills in both chambers is a strong indication that this legislation will be passed.

HJM 4001

Note: Current US Code does not allow a state to elect to Year-Round DST.

This Memorial requests the US Congress to amend US Code to permit states to observe Daylight Saving Time on a year-round basis. By extension, we assume that the state would eventually provide legislation to adopt such year-round DST, if US Code permitted it.

The language of this document addresses the following people:

President of the United States
President of the United States Senate
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Each member of congress.

Utah has a similar Memorial, and on February 11, a similar Resolution was filed in the state of Nevada.

Long Term View of HB 1479, SB 5570, and HJM 4001

While not explicitly stated in any legislative documents, the intent of both pieces of legislation may be to set the stage for Washington to eventually observe Year-Round DST. Should Congress amend 15 USC “Standard Time” section to permit an election of Year-Round DST, it would require an additional future bill in the Washington state legislature to move the state to Year-Round DST. In the meantime, the state will avoid deadly DST transitions, while waiting for Congress to act on their Memorial request.