Bills seek to end resetting clocks twice each year

House, Senate versions get rid of ‘spring forward’ and ‘fall back’ regimen.

A handful of Florida lawmakers are hoping to end the twice-annual irritation of forced time changes in America’s decadeslong attempt to regulate daylight.

Daylight saving time bills filed in the House and Senate this fall would amend the state’s timekeeping so the Sunshine State would not be required to spring forward an hour each March and fall back every November.

While these aren’t the first proposals on daylight saving time floated in Tallahassee, Senate bill sponsor Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, said previous legislation didn’t have proponents in both chambers working to stop the time manipulations that even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said can temporarily disrupt sleep, affect attention to detail and impede the ability to drive.

“The outpouring of response was pretty much the highest of any piece of legislation I’ve filed,” Steube said. “After we fell back in November, I had a number of people who had issues, especially with young children who have to acclimate to the time changes, and I was trying to respond to their concerns.”

Steube’s bill, SB 858, is co-sponsored by Debbie Mayfield, R-Melbourne. The House version, HB 1013, was filed jointly by Jeanette Nunez, R-Miami, and Heather Fitzenhagen, R-Fort Myers.

The proposals don’t currently

match — something that must happen before a bill can become a law.

The Senate bill would opt

Florida out of daylight saving time and keep it on standard time-year-round, similar to what

Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands do.

The House bill, which is called the “Sunshine Protection Act,” would keep daylight saving time year-round if changes at the federal level allow it. Currently, states only can opt out of daylight saving time, not make it permanent.

But Steube said he plans to amend his bill to match the

House version when committee meetings start in January.

He filed his proposal after a November experience at his barbershop, where one of the barbers was grousing about falling back an hour.

“Everyone else starts chim- forward an hour, to the first ing in and the unanimous conSunday in November, when sent was to do away with it,” clocks are moved back an Steube said. hour. The extension for

But he found general daylight saving time to eight confusion about the differ- months was approved in The ence between daylight savEnergy Policy Act of 2005 ing time and standard time, and went into effect in 2007. which most of the U.S. is Michael Downing, author of currently on. After an email the 2006 book, “Spring Forblast explained the difference, ward: The Annual Madness of Steube said people were over- Daylight Saving Time,” said whelmingly in favor of keep- there is a growing dissatisfac- ing daylight saving time year- tion with the time changes. round. “What it boils down to

Most of the U.S. adheres to every time is the cost to indi- daylight saving time between vidual states, especially in the second Sunday in March, terms of scheduling inter-when the clocks are moved state travel,” Downing said in a November interview. “It’s just really costly to redo plane schedules. All those flights for snowbirds would have to be redone.”

Steube said he’s confident with the House and Senate behind this year’s plans, some version will pass. Steube wants daylight saving time to become permanent when clocks are moved forward one hour in March.

“If we want to make daylight saving time permanent, I don’t see the federal government having an issue with it,” he said.

The first nationwide daylight saving time law was passed in 1918 as an energy-saving measure during World War I.

But it was also supported by Boston-area department store owner Lincoln Filene, who compiled a list of the benefits of daylight saving time, including that “most farm products are better when gathered with dew on.”

Farmers didn’t agree. They needed the sun to dry dew from their crops before they could harvest them and take them to market.

More daylight after work, however, meant more time to shop, play golf and go to baseball games.

“If you talk to the tourism industry, they like it because there’s more time in the evening to go out shopping,” Steube said. “If changing the time comes with all these problems, why keep doing it?”

Most of the U.S. adheres to daylight saving time between the second Sunday in March, when the clocks are moved forward an hour, to the first Sunday in November, when clocks are moved back an hour. The extension for daylight saving time to eight months was approved in The Energy Policy Act of 2005 and went into effect in 2007.