Daylight saving time bill fails to move forward in CT — again

State Rep. Kurt Vail was once again stymied this year in his mission to end the shift to and from daylight saving time.

For years, the state representative from Stafford has proposed a bill that would move Connecticut into the Atlantic standard time zone.

If it actually happened, Connecticut and other New England states, including New York, would be on daylight saving time 12 months a year.

The bill would not actually change anything for most of the year. When Connecticut moves the clocks forward on Sunday, the state would remain there and not turn them back ever again, according to Vail’s proposal.

This is the sixth straight year Vail has submitted his proposal. It has both bipartisan support and opposition. Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, has signed on, as has Sen. Craig Fishbein, RWallingford.

But this year is a so-called “short session” in the legislature, during which committees — not individual legislators — submit bills for consideration. So, Vail asked the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee to raise the bill.

They declined.

“I asked leadership in that committee to bring it up and they chose not to do that,” he said. “It’s dead in Connecticut for this year. I’m pretty disappointed in that.”

Even if Connecticut lawmakers passed the bill and Gov. Ned Lamont signed it, the legislation would not take effect until after other New England states signed on.

Each of those other states have had similar proposals raised in their respective legislatures.

“I was hoping Connecticut would be the first,” Vail said.

Vail believes there good reasons to end the shift to and from daylight saving time. When Massachusetts debated a similar bill in 2017, the state commissioned a study that found an increase in heart attacks and car accidents in the week following the time shift.

“There’s a lot of health issues with it,” Vail said last year. “Obviously, the world doesn’t rotate differently, but our bodies are programmed to this time frame.”

Daylight saving time started during World War I in the United States and other countries, as a way to save energy by extending the time of day when the sun set. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered year-round daylight saving time, in effect putting the East in Atlantic time.

In Connecticut, much of the opposition has come from broadcasters.

“Such a change would be extremely disruptive to viewers and listeners, who currently enjoy access to a mix of local and national programming, which is available in the Eastern Time Zone,” according to testimony submitted to the legislature in 2019 by Michael Ryan, president of the Connecticut Broadcasters Association.

But Vail is not giving up. He plans to submit the bill again next year.

“I’m going full force on it next year. We haven't given up,” he said. “There’s just zero reason for it anymore.”