Trump: “Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent Is O.K. With Me!”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Mon, 03/11/2019
President Trump has come out in support of a radical policy change that would likely find favor among millions of exhausted Americans: Making Daylight Saving Time permanent.
Support for ditching Daylight Saving Time (Saving not Savings) has been gaining popularity in recent years, as studies have shown that it’s not helpful for farmers and doesn’t conserve energy (which is why many Americans believe we use it), prompting many to wonder why we use it in the first place (the US adopted across the country after World War II). Studies have also shown that the shift leads to an increase in car accidents, heart attacks and strokes also climb, according to the Chicago Tribune.
But staying on DST would have the same result: avoiding the annoying time shifts. Wall Street traders would no doubt appreciate the extra hour of overlap with London markets that would accompany making DST permanent.
Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2019
Trump’s tweet follows a story in the New York Times, published last week, that proposes making this time change our last. Lawmakers in California have proposed making Daylight Saving permanent.
Compelled by the augustly named federal Uniform Time Act of 1966, most Americans will leap ahead – or stumble blearily – from one configuration of the clock to another this weekend, as daylight saving time clicks in at 2 a.m. Sunday.
But many people are saying it’s time for time to be left alone. State legislatures from New England to the West Coast are considering proposals to end the leaping, clock-shifting confusion of hours lost or gained, and the conundrums it can create.
According to the NYT, due to a quirk in a 1966 law, states can vote to remain on standard time all year, but they would need approval from Congress to, as Trump advocated, make Daylight Saving Time permanent. This is why the states of Hawaii and Arizona were able to opt out of Daylight Saving.
The 1966 law allows states to opt out of daylight saving, and Hawaii and Arizona do so, staying on standard time all year; so does Puerto Rico. But for reasons that historians say remain murky, the law does not allow states to opt in all the way, and choose daylight time year-round. So the California proposal, and a similar bill passed by the Florida Legislature last year, would require an act of Congress to take effect.
The Rest…HERE
