Three years ago, the Colorado legislature passed a bill making Daylight Saving Time permanent; the governor signed it, making it a law. The “law” though was, and remains, toothless, a dormant indication of the will and wishes of the state.
Two dynamics impede the implementation of these wishes: federal approval and regional agreement by at least four other states in the Mountain Time Zone.
The federal Uniform Time Act of 1966 does give states the right to opt out of Daylight Saving Time in order to remain with permanent Standard Time, but not the reverse. For states to do what Colorado has said it wants to do, there must be federal approval. Furthermore, however, Colorado’s “law” calls for the regional collaboration of neighboring states, by way of similar legislation.
To date, neither of these conditions has been met. In 2022, the U.S. Senate did pass unanimously the Sunshine Protection Act establishing Daylight Saving Time as permanent throughout the nation, but no iteration of it has passed the House of Representatives. In January of this year Florida Republican Representative Vern Buchanan introduced H.R. 139, a version of the Senate approved Sunshine Protection Act; it was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where it has languished for the remainder of the year. Colorado District 1 Representative Dianna DeGrette sits on the 54-member Committee, chaired by Kentucky’s Brett Guthrie. A scan of the Committee’s website, www.energy.commerce.house.gov shows no indication that H.R. 139 is included in the scores of matters before the Committee, ranging from cleansing “DEI” from this, that, and the other, to TicToc, the NBA, and emptying EPA of enforcement procedures.
So…
On November 2, this Sunday, we revert to our remembered practice of “falling back” an hour. Our practice has had a tumultuous history, dating back to the introduction of time zones by railroad companies in 1883; early twentieth century federal legislation first followed Europe’s “daylight saving” for the war effort in 1918, only to withdraw it a year later in response to farmers’ national protest. State practices wobbled around until the 1966 standardization in the Uniform Time Act with some freedoms to disengage. In the last 15 years fits and starts of state and congressional actions to redo all that with permanent Daylight Savings Time have come to naught.
Change your clocks.
At least those that need you to do so; many of our devices, whether in our vehicles, pockets and purses, or desktops, do it on their own. The Tribune is assured our readers are quite capable of sorting it all out household by household, business by business, county agency by agency, with more astuteness and efficiency than the national, confused discussion.
Have a good time…
– W.A. Ewing
