A Brief History of Citizens Band Radio©

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Daylight Saving Time, more properly Daylight Saving Time rather than “Daylight Savings Time,” is the practice of advancing civil clocks by one hour during part of the year so that more daylight falls in the evening. In the United States, DST has been used intermittently since World War I, standardized nationally in 1966, expanded several times, and briefly tried as a near-permanent winter policy during the 1974 Oil Embargo / Energy Crisis.

The 1974 experiment is the central historical warning. Congress and President Richard Nixon approved the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973, which put most of the country on year-round DST beginning January 6, 1974. The idea sounded attractive: an extra hour of daylight after work and school, plus hoped-for energy savings during the Arab oil embargo. But the public quickly discovered the other side of the bargain: sunrise also occurred an hour later by the clock. In winter, that meant many children waited for buses or walked to school in darkness, and many commuters drove to work before sunrise. Public support collapsed, and Congress amended the law later in 1974 to restore Standard Time for part of the winter.

The lesson is simple but often forgotten: DST does not create daylight. It merely renames the hours. A 7:30 a.m. sunrise under Standard Time becomes an 8:30 a.m. sunrise under permanent DST. Evening light is gained only by taking morning light away.

As of the July 2026 legislative context described in the request, the House has again voted to make DST permanent. If enacted into law, this would repeat, in broad outline, the policy the country tried in 1974 and quickly retreated from. Permanent DST remains popular in slogans because people like the idea of “more evening daylight,” but it is controversial among sleep scientists, school-safety advocates, parents, astronomers, and those who understand that Standard Time is the civil-time system most closely aligned with the sun.

A correction is important: the statement that Senator Charles Grassley was “actually there in 1974” needs qualification. Senator Grassley is one of the very few current federal officeholders whose congressional career reaches back to the 1970s, but he did not take office in the U.S. House until January 1975. Therefore, he was not a sitting member of Congress when the January 1974 permanent-DST law took effect, although he entered Congress while the nation was still dealing with the aftermath of that experiment.

• DST was first adopted nationally in the United States during World War I under the Standard Time Act of 1918. The DST portion was repealed after the war, but federal time zones remained.

• During World War II, the United States again adopted year-round advanced time, commonly called “War Time,” under the 1942 wartime daylight-saving law.

• From 1945 to 1966, DST observance was inconsistent across states and localities, creating confusion for railroads, broadcasters, airlines, bus companies, and interstate commerce.

• The Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized DST dates nationally while allowing states to opt out of DST entirely.

• The 1974 emergency DST experiment was adopted during the oil crisis to conserve energy, but it became unpopular after people experienced winter mornings in darkness.

• Public support for year-round DST reportedly fell sharply after the January 1974 implementation. The Congressional Research Service notes that the policy’s popularity declined after dark winter mornings became evident; see CRS report Daylight Saving Time.

• Congress amended the 1974 law to restore Standard Time from late October 1974 until late February 1975, effectively abandoning the original year-round-DST plan.

• The evidence for DST as a major energy saver is weak, mixed, and context-dependent. Some studies show small reductions in lighting demand, while others find offsets from heating, cooling, and morning energy use.

• Permanent DST is opposed by many sleep and circadian-rhythm experts. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine supports permanent Standard Time, not permanent DST, because morning light is important for human biological clocks.

• Standard Time is the system most closely synchronized with the sun: near the center of a time zone, the sun is approximately due south at noon, allowing for the equation of time and longitude differences. Permanent DST would shift legal noon about one hour later than solar noon.

• Permanent DST would not make sundials “wrong” in the astronomical sense; sundials would continue to show solar time. But they would be permanently about one hour behind legal clock time, plus ordinary corrections for longitude and the equation of time. Historic fixed sundials intended to approximate local solar time would no longer correspond closely to civil noon.

• The debate is not between “more daylight” and “less daylight.” The amount of daylight is controlled by Earth’s axial tilt, latitude, season, and weather. The political choice is whether to attach that daylight to earlier clock hours or later clock hours.

Daylight Saving Time advances civil clocks, usually by one hour, relative to Standard Time. If sunrise under Standard Time is 6:00 a.m., then under DST the clock reads 7:00 a.m. at the same physical moment. If sunset under Standard Time is 6:00 p.m., then under DST the clock reads 7:00 p.m. at the same physical moment.

DST therefore does not add daylight. It changes the label on daylight. Morning daylight is shifted into the evening by clock convention.

This is why permanent DST sounds attractive when discussed in terms of evening leisure but becomes unpopular when experienced on dark winter mornings. The policy is most appealing in the abstract and least appealing at a school-bus stop in January.

Before mechanical clocks and standardized time zones, local time was naturally based on the sun. Solar noon occurs when the sun crosses the local meridian and reaches its highest apparent point in the sky. In the Northern Hemisphere, that is approximately when the sun is due south.

Standard Time zones were designed around standard meridians separated by 15 degrees of longitude because Earth rotates 360 degrees in about 24 hours:

In the continental United States, the main Standard Time meridians are approximately:

• Eastern Standard Time: 75 degrees west longitude
• Central Standard Time: 90 degrees west longitude
• Mountain Standard Time: 105 degrees west longitude
• Pacific Standard Time: 120 degrees west longitude

Near these meridians, solar noon roughly corresponds to 12:00 noon Standard Time, ignoring the seasonal equation of time and local longitude offsets. Under DST, however, legal noon is shifted. At the center of a time zone, the sun is not near its highest point at 12:00 p.m. DST; it is closer to its highest point around 1:00 p.m. DST.

This is one of the strongest arguments against permanent DST. It permanently detaches civil time from the solar day by an additional hour.

A sundial does not “know” what Congress has decreed. It shows apparent solar time: the position of the sun in the sky. A properly mounted sundial can still be astronomically correct, but legal clock time may differ from the sundial for three major reasons:

• Longitude: A location east or west of the time-zone meridian will have solar noon earlier or later than the zone’s official noon.
• Equation of time: Because Earth’s orbit is elliptical and its axis is tilted, apparent solar time differs from mean solar time by as much as roughly plus or minus 16 minutes over the year.
• DST: Daylight Saving Time adds one full hour to the civil clock.

Under permanent DST, an old fixed sundial that once approximately matched civil time near Standard Time noon would be permanently displaced by about an hour from legal time. The sundial would not be “wrong” as a sundial; rather, the legal clock would have been moved away from solar time.

This is why the issue is not merely administrative. It reflects a philosophical and practical question: should human schedules stay roughly aligned with the sun, or should the government permanently redefine noon to occur before the sun is near its highest point?

DST is often incorrectly credited to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin did not propose modern DST. In 1784, while in Paris, he wrote a satirical essay suggesting that people could save candles by rising earlier and making better use of morning sunlight. The essay can be read via WebExhibits. Franklin was joking about social habits and candle use, not proposing a national clock-changing law.

The more direct forerunners of modern DST were George Vernon Hudson of New Zealand and William Willett of Britain. Hudson proposed a form of seasonal clock adjustment in the 1890s, motivated partly by his desire for more after-work daylight. William Willett popularized the idea in Britain with his 1907 pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight,” discussed by WebExhibits. Willett argued that advancing clocks would reduce wasted morning daylight and provide more usable evening light.

The first large-scale national adoptions came during World War I, when governments sought to conserve fuel and coordinate wartime production.

The United States adopted national Standard Time zones and seasonal DST under the Standard Time Act of 1918. The act established federal recognition of time zones and introduced daylight saving as a wartime measure.

After World War I ended, DST became unpopular among many farmers and rural interests. Contrary to the common myth that DST was created for farmers, many farmers opposed it. Livestock, crops, dew, and field work follow the sun, temperature, and biological rhythms, not the clock. A farmer whose cows are milked at sunrise does not gain anything from Congress relabeling sunrise.

Congress repealed the DST portion after the war, while preserving federal Standard Time zones. From that point forward, the country repeatedly returned to the same tension: urban commerce and recreation often favored later evening daylight; rural and morning-oriented activities often opposed clock manipulation.

During World War II, the United States adopted year-round advanced time again. The 1942 law placed the country on what was popularly called “War Time.” This was effectively year-round DST.

The wartime justification was national mobilization, fuel conservation, and industrial coordination. After the war, the federal mandate ended, and local control returned.

From 1945 to 1966, DST observance in the United States became chaotic. States and localities chose their own DST rules. Some observed DST, some did not, and some changed on different dates. This created problems for transportation, broadcasting, finance, and interstate business.

A bus route or train schedule could cross several local time regimes. Broadcasters had trouble coordinating network programming. Airlines and railroads faced needless complexity. This was one of the reasons Congress eventually stepped in.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized the start and end dates of DST across the country, while allowing states to exempt themselves from DST if the entire state did so. This remains the basic structure of U.S. time law, now codified primarily at 15 U.S.C. 260a.

Under federal law, states may generally choose permanent Standard Time, as Arizona and Hawaii have done, but they may not unilaterally choose permanent DST without congressional authorization. This asymmetry is important: permanent Standard Time is already legally available to states, while permanent DST requires federal action.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is the federal agency with major responsibility for time-zone matters. Its overview of DST is available at transportation.gov.

In October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Arab members of OPEC imposed an oil embargo against the United States and other countries. Fuel shortages, gasoline lines, price shocks, and national anxiety followed. Policymakers looked for visible conservation measures.

One proposed measure was year-round DST. The argument was that shifting an hour of daylight into the evening would reduce demand for electric lighting and possibly conserve fuel. Congress passed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973, and President Nixon signed it on January 4, 1974. The change took effect on January 6, 1974.

At first, many people supported the idea. In theory, it sounded pleasant and patriotic: conserve energy and enjoy more daylight after work. But winter immediately exposed the cost.

Permanent DST in winter meant very late sunrises. In northern and western parts of time zones, the effect was especially severe.

For example, if a city’s winter sunrise would normally occur at 7:50 a.m. Standard Time, under permanent DST the clock would read 8:50 a.m. at sunrise. Children leaving for school at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. would be doing so in darkness. Commuters would also be driving to work in darkness.

This was not a theoretical inconvenience. It was a direct consequence of shifting the clock. The evening gained an hour only because the morning lost an hour.

Reports of children traveling to school in darkness became politically powerful. Some school districts delayed opening times. Others faced complaints from parents. Highly publicized traffic accidents involving children intensified the backlash. The precise nationwide safety effect is difficult to reduce to a single number because evening-light benefits can offset some morning risks, but politically the dark-morning experience was devastating for permanent DST.

The Congressional Research Service summarizes the 1974 experience in its report Daylight Saving Time, noting that public approval declined after implementation and that Congress amended the law.

Before people experienced winter DST, support was high. After they lived through January and February mornings, support dropped sharply. The pattern is one of the clearest empirical lessons in U.S. time-policy history: permanent DST polls well as a slogan but performs poorly when winter darkness arrives.

This is a common human error. People imagine the extra evening light but fail to imagine the missing morning light. They picture walking the dog after work in daylight, not a child standing at a roadside bus stop in darkness.

There is also a deeper misunderstanding: many people think of the clock as natural and the sun as incidental. In reality, the sun is natural and the clock is the convention. Standard Time is the compromise built around the solar day. DST is the artificial seasonal displacement.

The original emergency law did not last as planned. Congress amended it in 1974 to restore Standard Time for the late fall and winter period. The country returned to Standard Time on October 27, 1974, and resumed DST on February 23, 1975.

In practical terms, Congress admitted that year-round DST was not acceptable to the public during the darkest part of the year. The United States had run a real-world experiment, and the result was political rejection.

Dark school mornings.
The most emotionally powerful objection was children going to school before sunrise. In many communities, children waited for buses, walked along roads, or crossed streets in darkness. Parents who had initially favored the policy quickly reconsidered.

Dark commuting.
Morning commuters also disliked driving to work before sunrise. Darkness, glare from headlights, winter weather, and fatigue made the morning commute feel more dangerous and unpleasant.

Mismatch with human biology.
Morning light helps signal wakefulness and anchors circadian rhythms. Permanent DST delays morning light, making winter wake times feel earlier relative to the sun. Sleep scientists now emphasize this point more strongly than policymakers did in 1974.

Cold, dark mornings feel worse than dark evenings.
In winter, temperature often reaches its daily low near dawn. Delaying sunrise by the clock means people begin the day in a colder, darker environment. The psychological burden is substantial.

The energy-saving benefit was not obvious to ordinary people.
The promised conservation benefit was small and hard to perceive. Parents could see the darkness at the bus stop; they could not see a clear reduction in national fuel use.

Public expectations were wrong.
Many people supported permanent DST because “more daylight after work” sounded like a pure gain. Once they experienced the tradeoff, they realized daylight had merely been moved.

The energy argument for DST has always been mixed. Early DST advocates focused on reduced evening lighting. That made more sense in an era when lighting was a larger share of household energy use and air conditioning was less common.

Modern energy consumption is more complicated. DST can reduce evening lighting demand but increase morning heating demand, morning lighting demand, or evening cooling demand. In hot climates, later sunsets may increase air-conditioning use because people are active at home during warmer, lighter evening hours.

The U.S. Department of Energy studied the 2007 DST extension created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Its report, Impact of Extended Daylight Saving Time on National Energy Consumption, estimated modest electricity savings during the added DST weeks. But the savings were small relative to total annual energy consumption.

Academic research has found mixed results. A frequently cited study of Indiana by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant found that DST increased residential electricity demand in that setting, largely because reductions in lighting were offset by increased heating and cooling. See the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Indiana.

The most defensible conclusion is that DST is not a major energy policy. Any savings are likely small, variable by region, and dependent on technology, climate, behavior, and energy-use patterns.

Modern sleep science has strengthened the case against permanent DST. Human circadian rhythms are influenced strongly by light, especially morning light. Morning light helps advance the biological clock and supports earlier sleep timing at night. Evening light tends to delay the biological clock, making it harder to fall asleep early.

Permanent DST delays sunrise and extends evening light. That combination can push people later biologically while fixed school and work schedules still force early wake times. The result can be chronic sleep restriction and “social jet lag.”

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement argues for permanent Standard Time rather than permanent DST. The AASM states that Standard Time is more aligned with human circadian biology and is preferable for public health and safety.

This is a crucial point: many people dislike changing clocks twice a year, but eliminating clock changes does not automatically mean permanent DST is the best choice. The scientifically favored no-clock-change option is often permanent Standard Time.

DST can affect traffic safety in competing ways. More evening daylight may reduce some evening crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. But darker mornings may increase morning risk, especially for schoolchildren and commuters.

The balance depends on location, latitude, school start times, commuting patterns, weather, and the distribution of travel. A community with many early school starts may experience the tradeoff differently than one with later schedules.

The 1974 backlash shows that even if statistical studies find mixed or offsetting safety effects, public tolerance for dark school mornings is low. Parents do not evaluate the issue as an abstract national average. They evaluate it at the end of their driveway, at the bus stop, and on the road to school.

• The phrase “more daylight” is emotionally attractive, even though it is technically misleading.
• Retail, recreation, golf, tourism, and outdoor-entertainment interests often prefer later sunsets.
• Many people dislike changing clocks twice per year and assume permanent DST is the natural alternative.
• The costs are most visible only in winter, while the political debate often occurs in spring or summer.
• Voters in southern latitudes may experience less severe winter sunrise delays than voters in northern latitudes.
• Many people do not understand the relationship between Standard Time and solar noon.

This last point is important. Standard Time is not merely a bureaucratic habit. It is the timekeeping system tied most closely to Earth’s rotation and the sun’s position. DST is the seasonal alteration. Permanent DST would make the alteration the new normal.

In recent years, Congress has repeatedly considered proposals to make DST permanent. The best-known recent proposal is the Sunshine Protection Act, associated prominently with Senator Marco Rubio. In March 2022, the Senate passed a version by unanimous consent, but the House did not enact it before the end of that Congress. The bill history is available at Congress.gov.

As of the July 2026 context described in the prompt, the House has again voted to make DST permanent. Because the legislative details can change quickly, readers should verify the final bill text, roll-call vote, Senate status, and presidential action at Congress.gov. A House vote alone does not by itself make permanent DST national law; enactment requires passage through both chambers and presentation to the president, unless Congress overrides a veto.

If the 2026 proposal becomes law, it would revive the essential question tested in 1974: are Americans willing to accept dark winter mornings in exchange for later winter sunsets?

Senator Charles Grassley is often mentioned in discussions of 1970s congressional history because of his extraordinary longevity in federal office. However, precision matters. Grassley began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 1975, after the emergency DST law had been enacted and after the initial January 1974 experience had already occurred. He did not cast a vote as a member of Congress on the January 1974 law.

He was, however, in Congress during the period immediately after the experiment, and he is among the very few current national political figures whose public career overlaps that era. The broader point remains valid: very few current lawmakers have direct institutional memory of the 1974 permanent-DST failure.

• Farther north, where winter days are shorter.
• On the western edge of a time zone, where solar noon already occurs later by the clock.
• In places with early school start times.
• In communities where children walk or wait outdoors for buses.
• In areas with icy or snowy winter morning conditions.

Consider two locations in the same time zone. A city near the eastern edge of the zone may see sunrise much earlier by the clock than a city near the western edge. Permanent DST magnifies this disparity by adding another hour of delay.

This is why national DST policy can feel reasonable in one place and absurd in another. A winter sunrise at 8:10 a.m. may be tolerable to some. A winter sunrise at 9:20 a.m. is another matter.

An important policy alternative is permanent Standard Time. This would eliminate the twice-yearly clock change while keeping civil time more closely aligned with the sun.

States already have some ability to opt out of DST and remain on Standard Time. Arizona, except for the Navajo Nation, and Hawaii do not observe DST. Their experience shows that permanent Standard Time is administratively possible.

The National Conference of State Legislatures tracks state DST legislation and explains the limits of state authority at NCSL’s daylight saving time page.

Permanent Standard Time would mean earlier winter sunrises than permanent DST and earlier summer sunsets than current DST. Supporters argue that it is healthier, simpler, and more honest because noon remains closer to solar noon.

The phrase “extra hour of daylight” is one of the most misleading expressions in American public policy. DST provides no extra daylight. It provides an extra hour of evening daylight by taking an hour of morning daylight.

The number of daylight hours on a given date is determined by latitude and season. Congress cannot legislate more sunlight. It can only legislate what the clock says when sunlight occurs.

“Permanent DST moves one hour of winter morning light into the afternoon and evening, causing later winter sunrises.”

The 1974 episode matters because it was not a theory. It was an empirical test. The United States tried winter DST nationwide during a national crisis. People initially liked the idea. Then they lived with it. Then they rejected it.

This is stronger evidence than a poll asking people in April whether they would like more evening light. A springtime poll cannot reproduce the experience of a January morning when the sun has not risen and children are leaving for school.

The 1974 lesson is not that DST is always bad. The lesson is that permanent DST in winter carries costs that are easy to underestimate and hard to tolerate.

Other countries have also debated DST and permanent clock changes. The European Union has considered ending seasonal clock changes, but member-state disagreement over whether to choose permanent summer time or permanent standard time has complicated the issue. Russia tried permanent DST-like time beginning in 2011, then reversed course in 2014 after complaints about dark winter mornings and health concerns, moving instead toward permanent standard time in many regions.

International experience reinforces the American lesson: ending clock changes is popular in principle, but choosing permanent summer time/DST often becomes controversial when winter mornings arrive.

• Many people prefer daylight after work rather than before work.
• Evening daylight can support outdoor recreation, shopping, sports, and tourism.
• Some crime may be reduced in brighter evening hours, depending on local patterns.
• The twice-yearly clock change is unpopular and may have short-term health and accident effects.
• A single year-round time would be simpler than changing clocks twice per year.

These are real arguments. The question is whether they justify making winter sunrise an hour later by law.

The strongest argument against permanent DST is that it fights the sun in the season when sunlight is already scarce. It delays morning light, worsens the mismatch between social schedules and biological rhythms, endangers or at least alarms parents of schoolchildren, and moves civil time farther away from solar time.

If the goal is to stop changing clocks, permanent Standard Time solves that problem while preserving better alignment with sunrise, noon, and human circadian biology.

The impact can be illustrated simply. Suppose a city has the following winter Standard Time sunrise:

7:15 a.m. Standard Time becomes 8:15 a.m. permanent DST.
7:45 a.m. Standard Time becomes 8:45 a.m. permanent DST.
8:10 a.m. Standard Time becomes 9:10 a.m. permanent DST.

Nothing about the sun changed. Only the clock changed. But for schools, work shifts, commuting, and morning safety, the difference is substantial.

Some advocates frame Standard Time as if it deprives people of daylight. That is incorrect. Standard Time merely assigns clock labels closer to the natural solar day. The darkness of winter is caused by Earth’s axial tilt, not by Standard Time.

In winter, the daylight period is short. If society wants later sunsets, it must accept later sunrises. If society wants safer, brighter mornings, it must accept earlier sunsets. There is no clock law that gives both.

School schedules are central to the permanent-DST debate. Early school start times already conflict with adolescent sleep biology. Permanent DST can worsen that conflict by delaying morning light. Students may wake in darkness, travel in darkness, and begin classes before their bodies have received the light cues that help establish alertness.

One workaround is to delay school start times. But if permanent DST requires schools to delay start times in winter, then the supposed simplicity of permanent DST partly disappears. Society would be changing schedules instead of changing clocks.

Much of the demand for DST arises because work schedules are rigid. Many people work roughly 8-to-5 or 9-to-5 schedules and want daylight afterward. But one could achieve similar results through flexible work hours, seasonal business hours, or local schedule adjustments without redefining noon for the entire country.

For example, a business that wants employees to enjoy more winter afternoon light could open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Standard Time rather than require the entire time zone to operate on permanent DST. That approach makes the tradeoff explicit instead of hiding it in the clock.

Under current federal law, states can opt out of DST and remain on Standard Time, but they generally cannot adopt permanent DST on their own. This is because federal law governs time zones and DST observance for national uniformity.

This structure reflects a practical reality: time is networked. Transportation, communications, broadcasting, financial markets, military operations, and interstate commerce all depend on predictable time rules.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended DST beginning in 2007. Since then, DST in the United States has generally started on the second Sunday in March and ended on the first Sunday in November. This lengthened the DST period but did not make it permanent.

The Department of Energy’s report on the extension found small electricity savings, but not savings large enough to make DST a major energy-conservation tool. See DOE’s report to Congress.

The official term is “Daylight Saving Time,” singular. The common phrase “Daylight Savings Time” is widespread but technically incorrect. The idea is that daylight is being “saved” or better used, not that there are multiple “savings.”

That said, the grammar is less important than the concept. The real problem is not the extra “s” but the false impression that daylight itself is being increased.

Should the United States stop changing clocks?
There is broad public frustration with changing clocks twice per year. The open question is whether the replacement should be permanent Standard Time or permanent DST.

Is permanent DST worth the dark winter mornings?
Supporters emphasize evening recreation, commerce, and convenience. Opponents emphasize schoolchildren, commuters, circadian biology, and solar alignment.

How large are the energy effects today?
The energy impact of DST varies by region, season, climate, and technology. Modern LED lighting, air conditioning, heating patterns, electric vehicles, and remote work all complicate older assumptions.

How should school start times factor into time policy?
If permanent DST is adopted, pressure may grow to delay school start times, especially in northern and western parts of time zones. Whether that would happen uniformly is uncertain.

Should time policy be national, regional, or state-based?
Uniformity helps commerce and transportation, but local solar conditions vary dramatically. Maine, Michigan, Florida, Texas, North Dakota, and Washington do not experience winter sunrise in the same way.

Should Congress prioritize public preference or scientific recommendations?
Many polls show people dislike clock changes, but public opinion can shift depending on whether the proposed alternative is permanent DST or permanent Standard Time. Sleep scientists generally favor permanent Standard Time.

How much weight should be given to the 1974 experiment?
Supporters of permanent DST may argue that society has changed since 1974: school policies, road lighting, flexible work, and energy use are different. Opponents respond that the sun has not changed, winter mornings are still dark, and human biology still depends on morning light.

The history of DST in the United States is a cycle of enthusiasm, inconvenience, adjustment, and renewed enthusiasm. The most important episode is 1974, when Congress tried year-round DST during the energy crisis. The public initially liked the promise of more evening daylight, then rebelled against dark winter mornings. Congress retreated.

The central fact has not changed: permanent DST would not create more daylight. It would move daylight from morning to evening all year long. In summer, many people like that tradeoff. In winter, the tradeoff becomes severe, especially for children, commuters, northern states, and western edges of time zones.

Standard Time is the civil-time system more closely aligned with the sun. Near the center of a time zone, noon on Standard Time roughly corresponds to the sun’s highest point in the sky. Permanent DST would make legal time permanently less natural by placing solar noon closer to 1:00 p.m. than 12:00 p.m. Sundials would continue to tell solar time, but legal clock time would be shifted away from them indefinitely.

The 1974 experiment should not be forgotten. It was not a simulation, not a theory, and not a partisan talking point. The nation tried permanent DST in winter and quickly learned that later sunsets come with later sunrises. If Congress makes DST permanent again, it will be choosing to repeat a policy whose most obvious defect was already demonstrated more than half a century ago.

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A Brief History of DayLight Savings Time©

A Brief History of DayLight Savings Time^©