This has been tried before and failed. I know there are members of Congress who are older than I am, so at least some of them ought to remember the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973, a year-round DST plan signed by President Nixon to ease the energy crisis. I like DST during the summer because I would rather have an extra hour of sunlight in the evening when I am awake to use it rather than in the morning when I am still asleep. The problem with DST all year is that, at least in areas farther north, the sun rises very late during the days of the year with the shortest hours of sunlight. In high school in 1974-75, I had to catch the bus around 7:10 and I walked to the bus stop by starlight. That was in St. Louis, which is not that far north. As I recall, sunrise could occur as late as 8:00, maybe later. That wasn’t a problem for me, but I wouldn’t want to send smaller children out in the dark like that, especially these days. Anyway, I believe that concern is why this experiment was ended. Despite the bipartisan gushing on this, not even a mighty act of Congress will give us more sunlight to enjoy all the time.
I am sure that somebody in Washington could have done a little research into this — maybe by picking up a copy of “The Farmers’ Almanac,” - -but, hey, it is Washington after all.
You echo’d what I typed. More daylight in the morning makes more sense, not the evening time.
Redoing the time zones would go a long way to taking care of the dark in the morning.
The Eastern time zone goes from Maine to Michigan and Kentucky, which make a significant difference.
In Portland ME, sunrise today was 6:53 AM and in Louisville, KY it was 7:53, a full hour later in the same time zone.
That’s just too much of a difference.
It makes me laugh when I hear people saying that they get more daylight…As if we are affecting the amount of time the sun shines.
News flash, you’re not changing anything but a clock-still have the same amount of sunlight time. Never made sense to me. Someone tried to explain to me that it was for the farmers. Not knowing anything about farmer, I assumed that farmers didn’t even have clocks. They got up, worked until they were done then went to bed, probably never even looking at a clock.
Thanks for taking the time for that post. FR at its best.
As another Freeper mentioned, why not change school hours if the concern is child safety. No matter how you cut it, northern regions will undergo significant shift in the amount of sunlight each day. Why not enjoy the variety while leaving the clock alone?