Hello darkness my old friend
The Legislature takes up the annual debate over turning the clocks back
It’s almost that time of the year, folks — time to turn back the clocks.
But it’s also time to talk about turning back the clocks. Will it be the last time for that?
For a moment at the State House last Tuesday, the issue was up for debate. Legislators were presented with competing bills aimed at ending the widely-disliked tradition of resetting clocks twice a year. One would simply keep us in line with Atlantic Standard Time year-round instead of “falling back” to Eastern Standard Time for four months, as we will this weekend. Winter sunrises would be an hour later. So would winter sunsets. This proposal has been kicking around the State House for six years or so.
Another bill has recently emerged — one that would switch Massachusetts to Eastern Standard Time for all 12 months. In that scenario, even if the rest of New England goes along, we would be an hour behind New York, Washington, and the rest of the East Coast — much as Chicago is — for eight months each year. If that seems impractical, know that both proposals are also aimed at sending a message to Congress to address the daylight saving conundrum for everyone.
Is it the most pressing issue on Beacon Hill? Hardly. The Legislature’s state administration committee lumped it with a hodgepodge of other bills at last week’s public hearing. Also on the docket: the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center expansion, a property transfer for a courthouse in Framingham, and naming Bell’s Seasoning as the official seasoning of the Commonwealth (to name a few). No one cleared the decks to focus on “Sunshine Protection,” as DST bills are often called. And only a few people testified. But unlike the agenda’s other topics, this one obviously affects everyone.
In recent years, many state legislatures have discussed bills that would stop the biannual changing of the clocks, while a federal solution occasionally gets tossed around in Congress. But the way the Massachusetts Legislature entered this debate is particularly quirky. It started with a public health advocate who moved to Quincy from Virginia in 2011. Tom Emswiler likes to say he knew he was moving north, but had no idea just how far east. Our earlier sunsets, particularly in the winter, surprised him. So Emswiler guest-wrote a column for the Globe extolling the virtues of moving New England to Atlantic Standard Time yearround — in other words, adopting daylight saving time all the time.
Emswiler received such a
positive response that he filed his own bill with the Legislature to study the concept. Normally, without a legislator’s backing, these types of bills go nowhere. But in 2016, the Senate unexpectedly included Emswiler’s proposal in its version of a broad economic development bond bill. House negotiators agreed, and a special commission to study time zones was born.
This group met periodically throughout 2017 before finally recommending that the state switch to Atlantic Standard
Time (aka “our” DST) on a yearround basis, with two caveats: Most other New England states and/or New York need to go along, and Massachusetts officials should start school later so kids don’t walk in the dark. The commission concluded later winter sunsets would spur afterwork commerce, reduce street crime, and maybe offset some of the general bleakness that can chase people to sunnier locales. Other cited benefits stemmed from ending the forced “jet lag” in the spring, when everyone loses an hour of time. Medical research shows this annual “spring forward” can cause a range of maladies, from traffic fatalities to workplace injuries to heart attacks.
It was enough to persuade Senator John Keenan of Quincy, Emswiler’s state senator. This marks the third session in which Keenan has filed a bill to move to Atlantic Standard Time yearround. His bill would require at least two other Northeast states to agree, and would create a task force to study school start times.
Keenan said he was motivated because he continues to hear from Massachusetts residents who are frustrated by the antiquated concept of changing clocks twice a year. This year, for the first time, a similar bill was filed in the House, by Representative Vanna Howard of Lowell. (Eileen Donoghue, a former state senator from Lowell, led the time-zone commission.)
But now the pro-DST crowd has competition. This year, for the first time, Representative Angelo Puppolo of Springfield entered the fray with a bill promoting a year-round Eastern Standard Time — earlier summer sunrises and sunsets. All other New England states except Maine would have to go along. Notably missing: language about when kids go to school. (Senator Patrick O’Connor filed a similar bill in his chamber.)
Puppolo said he based his bill on research shared by Dr. Karin Johnson and other medical experts. Johnson, a neurology professor at UMass Chan Medical School and sleep doctor at Baystate Health, has been trying to push back against a rising clamor for a year-round daylight saving time. Adopting standard time as the full-year solution is more in line with our bodies’ circadian rhythms, Johnson argues, and avoids the negative health impacts of dark winter mornings. She’s also skeptical that extending DST year-round would result in the energy savings touted by proponents.
Both sides agree on one thing: a federal solution would be preferable to a patchwork of states setting their own watches, or rules. They see these state bills as a way to send a message to federal policy makers about which option to choose.
In Washington, the past track record seems to favor daylight saving time. Congress amended the 1966 Uniform Time Act in 1986 and then in 2005 to add several more weeks of daylight saving time with each change. US Senator Ed Markey is an unabashed fan, and co-sponsored both of those DST extensions as a US representative. Last year, Markey scored another victory when the Senate passed a yearround DST bill he co-sponsored with US Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida. The legislation sailed through on a voice vote, seemingly without all senators informed by staffers that it was even up for debate. The bill went nowhere in the House, and opponents vowed to fight it should it resurface.
Markey, in a brief statement, urged critics of a permanent daylight saving time to “see the light” and hop on his bandwagon. He argues that a permanent DST would be good for the economy, safety, and public health, while reducing energy consumption.
So who wins? The night owls who prefer a year-round daylight saving time, or the early birds who would rather see “standard time” be the standard?
Maybe, by this time next year, lawmakers on Beacon Hill or Capitol Hill will finally pick an alternative to the annoying tradition of springing forward and falling back. More likely? We’ll all still be talking about it when it’s time to adjust our clocks again.