During winter evenings, the Senate says that you should have some more than just a little bit of sunshine in your pocket. Last week, it passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time a permanent part of our lives. But the bill still has to get through the House, and it’s surrounded by a lot of people who have different ideas.
In case you’re still tired from the change this weekend, you might be in favour of making DST last all year long. The bill’s author, Sen. Marco Rubio, said that an extra hour of daylight in the evenings during the winter would help reduce crime, seasonal depression, and childhood obesity.
But the opposition has a lot of history to back them up, which helps them.
For the same reason that DST was first put in place: to save money and energy. American people, who were having to deal with dry gas pumps that year because of an oil crisis, overwhelmingly wanted DST to stay.
There is also the fact that sunrises after 8am aren’t very pretty. Children had to wait in the dark for their school buses, and a study by the Department of Transportation found that the switch did not even save fuel. This is why in October of that same year, the House of Representatives joined together and voted 383 to 16 to get rid of DST.
Opponents of the Sunshine Protection Act say that if DST was made permanent, it would have a lot of bad effects:
From October to March, clocks in Europe will not be in sync with each other. It’s bad news for trade, travel, and setting up a yacht week.
The religious rituals that are usually done at sunrise will be more difficult or impossible to do before you go to work.
People may be more likely to go out and about after work, which could lead to more gas use.
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Eddy isn’t here, so what about him? Hawaii, most of Arizona, and the United States territories have chosen the third option: permanent standard time, which is the same time all over the country.
As long as the Sunshine Protection Act is passed, they won’t have to change their clocks for daylight saving time. And this is what the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has pushed for, saying that standard time is the best way to get a good night’s sleep. There is a chance that better, more consistent sleep could cut down on the number of strokes and heart attacks, which both go up when the clocks are switched.