Bay State may brighten days with year-round daylight savings time
Lacking authority to change the laws of physics to allow more sunlight on the darkest days of winter, a special commission is instead considering whether Massachusetts should change the laws of man and observe daylight saving time year-round.
If adopted, Massachusetts residents wouldn’t have to set their clocks back in November and forward in March, as most of the U.S. does.
Benefits of having daylight saving time throughout the year could include energy savings and less seasonal depression, proponents suggest.
Skeptics argue it would be impractical for Massachusetts to make such a change on its own if the rest of New England does not. And if the sun sets later in the day it also would rise later in the morning, posing dangers for children walking to school in the dark.
“Are we just going to be trading one problem for another problem?” asked Republican state Rep. Paul Frost, a member of the 11-member commission that met for the first time yesterday and hopes to make recommendations by March 31.
Massachusetts isn’t alone in weighing the pros and cons of doing away with the seasonal time shifts. California, Alaska and nearly a dozen other states have debated similar measures. Some of Massachusetts’ neighbors also have broached the subject. A Rhode Island lawmaker proposed a bill last year that he hoped would lead the entire Northeast region to shift one-hour eastward to the Atlantic Time Zone, which includes several Canadian maritime provinces.