{"id":694,"date":"2015-12-05T06:40:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T13:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TimeZoneReport.com\/?p=694"},"modified":"2015-12-05T07:10:10","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T14:10:10","slug":"new-mexicos-sen-cliff-pirtle-may-try-again-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/TimeZoneReport.com\/?p=694","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico’s Sen. Cliff Pirtle May Try Again in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

While scouring around to see if there was any other 2016 DST legislation in the works (besides Florida<\/a>), I found an article on the KOAT ABC 7 TV web site<\/a>\u00a0and several Associated Press releases (like this one\u00a0from the KRQE News 13 web site)<\/a>\u00a0which indicate that New Mexico Senator Cliff Pirtle may try to adopt Year Round DST for the state again in the 2016 legislative session.<\/p>\n

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As Time Zone Report monitored New Mexico DST legislation last year<\/a>, we found Sen. Pirtle’s proposed SB 377 which, though passed by the Senate, died in the House’s Government, Elections, and Indian Affairs committee at the end of the session.<\/p>\n

I was in contact with Senator Pirtle a number of times last year, and advised him that Year-Round DST won’t fly, according to the US DOT<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve sent him another note, referencing the articles above, and urged him “NOT to go forward with a bill to adopt Year-Round DST, or to change time zones, as these will almost certainly be disapproved by the US DOT”.<\/p>\n

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What do I recommend as an alternative?<\/p>\n

What we really need is for Congress to mandate that the US DOT, in conjunction and with the assistance of other federal and state agencies, evaluate the entire country\u2019s time zone alignment and the numerous issues around changing clocks forward and back in March and November each year.<\/p>\n

In my opinion and based on several conversations with a member of the General Counsel at the US DOT, they can\u2019t get behind any piecemeal\/patchwork changes across the country. The only hope for change is to adopt an all-encompassing plan for a one-time nationwide realignment.<\/p>\n

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