When the DST piece I wrote on CNN appeared, and then the fall time change happened, there was an understandable surge in interest.
Then I got busy at work, and Thanksgiving, bla bla bla, here I am a month later posting the next blog post. (Not great for a guy who’s day job is about the importance of blogging regularly.)
Suddenly this week there’s a surge of activity related to getting rid of all the dumb clock changing into and out of Daylight Saving Time.
In my home state of Colorado, a personal trainer and his wife have made it their mission to stay in DST year round. See their story here, and the page they set up here.
I wrote to Sean Johnson, the guy leading that group. I really want to encourage him, because any efforts to raise awareness are great. Respectfully, I tried to point out to him that his efforts in the particular direction he’s headed may not work. Several state legislators have learned this lesson the hard way: The federal government just won’t let states set their own time zone. That’s what the law in 1966 was all about.
I’m hoping that he will take his considerable talents and motivation and direct it toward a plan that could really work. All the other efforts since 1966 have failed, and I fear his will, too.
What’s the plan? It’s outlined in the posts below, but basically it’s to go to state legislatures and ask them to pass a bill that says, essentially: “If at least two-thirds of the states pass a similar bill, we will petition the Federal DOT to stop the clock changing.”
You see, it’s only with a huge majority of states moving at the same time that the feds will hear the voice of the people. One state at a time, the feds will always win.
Even if the state is as big as Texas.
I read this morning that Rep. John Frullo of Texas wants to get the Lone Star State to stop switching in and out of DST. That’s awesome, of course.
(One note: He’s advocating that Texas stay in Standard Time year round. In Texas, as in Arizona, that might be OK because of the long days and the heat in that state, not to mention that Texas is at the far western edge of the Central Time zone, so it has plenty of light in summer evenings. In most other states the golf and recreation industries will fight to keep states in Daylight Time year-round.)
I wrote to Rep. Frullo and encouraged him to consider carrying a bill following the two-thirds plan. If he can get that signed by the governor of Texas, that will go a long way to getting this plan rolling and may be the quickest way for Texas to actually be able to stop all the clock changing.
(One other side note, if you watch that TV spot, the reporter says that DST started in the early 1900s “to accomodate people working out doors.” Baloney. That was never part of the initial thinking. Germany was the first country to use DST and it was to conserve fuel for WWI. Britain and the US soon followed suit.)
Not sure why all the Daylight Saving Time news is from the West, but the one other state looking at this up close this week is Utah. There a popular radio show is hosting a discussion about DST. They’ll have the author David Prerau on. He wrote Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time. When I got into this issue I devoured that book, it’s very very good.
That show will also have two state legislators on. I hope the host will ask them what they think of the two-thirds idea as a way to make progress on this.
If they do, I’ll be sure to report back here and put a link up to that conversation.