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I hardly hear this being brought up at all. Are people not annoyed enough about it to contact their representatives? Only two states (Arizona and Hawaii) don't observe daylight saving time. It certainly sounds like a legitimate issue.

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    Nobody cares about another hour of daylight between 5 am and 6 am. Most people would happily exchange that hour for an hour of daylight between 9 pm and 10 pm. Which is what DST does for northern states.
    – Sjoerd
    Mar 14, 2017 at 0:50
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    @Sjoerd outside of Alaska I don't think there's anywhere in the US that has a sunset much later than 9 p.m., even with daylight saving time. Seattle in late June, for example, is around 9:15.
    – phoog
    Mar 14, 2017 at 3:27
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    I hate to be the one, but the correct term is "daylight saving time." timeanddate.com/time/dst/daylight-savings-time.html Mar 14, 2017 at 4:14
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    I don't understand. are you saying Congress should force Arizona and Hawaii to have DST? or should they force the others to do as Arizona and Hawaii do?
    – Federico
    Mar 14, 2017 at 8:38
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    Man I wish I could upvote this question several time. I'm from Europe but I hate the concept of DST with passion. Stupidest idea the humanity ever had. It's english name makes it even more stupid, since it doesn't save any daylight but simply change clocks (in french the name is "summer hour")
    – Bregalad
    Mar 14, 2017 at 13:11

2 Answers 2

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State Level

There are plenty of daylight savings time bills. According to this website, which tracks daylight savings time bills across the United States, in legislative year 2017 14 states have introduced bills to change daylight savings time.

Those states are: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nebraska, California, Maine, Connecticut, Texas, Illinois, New Hampshire, Iowa, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Wyoming.

This is all just to say that there is plenty of interest among states. Most of these laws will never be passed. The primary constraint of a legislature is time: they consider a large number of bills in a relatively short amount of time. There are many mechanisms to cull bills (drop-dead days, "the line", etc.), but the short story is that daylight savings time doesn't seem to be more pressing than the other subjects a legislature is considering any particular year.

Federal Level

Something I learned while preparing this answer - federal law gives the US Department of Transportation the ability to regulate and administer daylight savings time. States can pass a law recommending to the USDoT that they be excused from DST, but the Department can turn them down.

According to law, the Department is to decide based on, "the convenience of commerce". According to their site, requests from states are rare. It doesn't seem that the major impediment is the federal regulation, but the relative unimportant of DST as a political issue at the state level.

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    Very interesting. Never knew UsDOT was in charge of DST.
    – Noah
    Mar 14, 2017 at 1:45
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    @Noah I suppose it has to do with the history of time zones, which were developed to address needs that arose in connection with rail travel.
    – phoog
    Mar 14, 2017 at 3:31
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    Last year Massachusetts created a commission to study changing from the Eastern to Atlantic time zone and dropping DST. That commission's report is expected in the next few weeks. This year New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island have proposed bills to also change their time zone and drop DST, contingent on whether Massachusetts does so - which seems unlikely. Mar 14, 2017 at 4:38
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    @MichaelHampton Abandoning DST and moving one timezone east means having permanent DST, not having none. That's what France did during the 2nd world war due to German occupation, and finally they adapted DST again in the 70s, leading to them today being 2 hours ahead of what they originally were during the summer (and 1 hour during the winter).
    – Bregalad
    Mar 14, 2017 at 15:47
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    @Bregalad whether moving one time zone east constitutes "permanent daylight savings time" is rather dependent on the longitude of the location. In most of New England, it happens to be closer to true, but Eastern Maine (67 degrees west) is actually closer to 60 degrees west than it is to 75 degrees west. Also, the US was also on year-round daylight saving time during WWII, from February 9 1942 until September 30, 1945, but it was called "war time" instead of "daylight saving time."
    – phoog
    Mar 14, 2017 at 18:23
8

On March 15, 2022, the US Senate passed S.623 - Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 (as amended) by unanimous consent. The amendment established an effective date of November 5, 2023. The bill now goes to the House which is currently considering H.R.69 - Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 (absent the effective date of the Senate amendment). The CRS summary of the bills:

This bill makes daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time.

States with areas exempt from daylight saving time may choose the standard time for those areas.

Reuters reports that,

The White House has not said whether Biden supports it. A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to say if she supports the measure but said she was reviewing it closely.

Consideration of H.R.69 began March 9, 2022, with a Hearing on "Changing Times: Revisiting Spring Forward, Fall Back" by the Consumer Protection and Commerce subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce committee.

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  • Do any of these people realize that it means the sun will rise between 8:00 and 9:00 in much of the country? Winter mornings are difficult enough as it is. What happened to concern for the safety of children going to school in the dark?
    – phoog
    Mar 16, 2022 at 6:09
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    @phoog, I need to look up the sources, but there is enough research (though usually country-specific, and I don't remember US-specific ones) that shows that if you must choose between 'dark morning' and 'dark afternoon' (e.g. morning and evening peak traffic), it is safer to have 'dark mornings'. Winter evenings are even more difficult.
    – Zeus
    Mar 16, 2022 at 6:57
  • @Zeus safety and difficulty are different matters. Going to sleep after dark is far easier than waking up in the dark. And traffic safety is only one element of safety that is affected by daylight.
    – phoog
    Mar 16, 2022 at 7:19
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    @phoog - The Testimony of Beth A. Malow, MD, MS before the Consumer Protection and Commerce subcommittee may be of interest.
    – Rick Smith
    Mar 16, 2022 at 14:17
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    @RickSmith indeed it is. I wish there were more attention given to the choice between permanent daylight saving and permanent standard time. How many legislators supporting this bill are from northern states and are old enough to remember 1974? Rubio, at least, is neither. Sadly, the senate adopted it by unanimous consent, so we can't analyze votes.
    – phoog
    Mar 16, 2022 at 14:59

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