The Ohio Statehouse has taken a significant step towards a bipartisan bill that advocates for the permanent observation of daylight saving time. The bill was passed by the House last year and has since gained further momentum.
In a recent Senate General Government Committee hearing, the legislators discussed the Concurrent Resolution 7, which had previously passed the House in December. This marks the first time the bill has been debated at the Statehouse. The resolution, if passed, would urge the U.S. Congress to pass the “Sunshine Protection Act,” which would facilitate the transition to perpetual daylight saving across the country.
During a June hearing, Reps. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and Bob Peterson (R-Sabina), who are the primary sponsors of the bill, presented their argument that the biannual tradition of changing clocks is no longer necessary in the United States. They referred to several studies that indicate that changing clocks twice a year can lead to various issues related to work, school, safety, and sleep.
According to Creech, altering the time can lead to an increase in cardiac problems, strokes, and extended seasonal depression. A study conducted recently highlighted that losing sleep, even for just an hour, can have a significant impact on a child’s quality of life. This can result in negative effects on their physical health and their ability to cope with school life.
According to a study, adult workers tend to sleep 40 minutes less, experience 5.7% more workplace injuries, and lose 67.6% more workdays due to injuries on the day following the spring shift compared to other days. Another research conducted on fatal accidents in the U.S. spanning over 21 years revealed a notable surge in accidents on the Monday after the spring forward and another increase on the Sunday after the fall back.
Save Standard Time, a nonprofit organization, has been advocating for the extension of standard time throughout the year. In a previous hearing, the organization’s president, Jay Pea, pointed out that implementing daylight saving time would result in Ohio’s sunrise being delayed past 8 a.m. for over four months, with some days seeing it rise as late as 9:06 a.m. Interestingly, Ohio had previously rejected a proposal to implement daylight saving permanently in 1974. Pea’s recommendation, instead, is to extend the use of standard time throughout the entire year.
Pea argues that adopting permanent standard time would not only safeguard the start times for schoolchildren and essential workers but also allow most people to sleep in naturally past dawn throughout the year. This would lead to numerous benefits for circadian health, including improved immunity, longevity, mood, alertness, and performance in school, sports, and work. According to Pea, standard time is the natural clock that is set according to the sun.
According to Creech and Peterson, the purpose of daylight saving time was to save power during World War I. However, a study conducted in Australia in 2008 found that changing the clocks twice a year doesn’t actually reduce electricity consumption as previously believed. Instead, the study found that the time change simply causes a shift in demand that aligns with activity patterns tied to the clock rather than the natural cycles of sunrise and sunset.
According to Peterson, changing clocks twice a year does not actually save any power nor does it cause people to change their behavior based on outdoor lighting. In fact, researchers have found that modern schedules are more reliant on clocks rather than the sun.
In Ohio, the lawmaker’s resolution acknowledges that the implementation of daylight saving time would be restricted until federal law is amended. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 permits states to switch to standard time, but daylight saving time necessitates a change in federal legislation to shift to permanent daylight saving time.
The passing of the Sunshine Protection Act would result in later sunsets during the winter season, but it would also lead to later sunrises. In New York, for instance, the first day of winter witnesses the sun rising at approximately 7:15 a.m. and setting at roughly 4:30 p.m. However, with the implementation of the Sunshine Protection Act, the sunrise time would shift to 8:15 a.m. while the sunset time would be pushed to 5:30 p.m.
Several states have expressed interest in making daylight saving time permanent, but others such as New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee prefer to stick with standard time. According to a Monmouth University poll, 61% of Americans would like to eliminate the biannual time change, while 35% prefer to maintain the current system.
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