||| FROM KING-TV |||
Washington legislators continue to pursue a fix to springing forward and rolling back the clocks.
Two Washington state senators are trying once again to switch the state to permanent Pacific Standard Time. According to the pre-filed bill sponsored by Sens. Jeff Wilson and Manka Dhingra, the state would still advance clocks by one hour in the spring of 2025, but then would give up the practice for good when we roll back next November.
A body of research has shown that switching between daylight saving time and standard time has negative impacts on public health, including an increase in traffic accidents, greater risks of heart attacks, more frequent workplace injuries and increased suicide rates in the days immediately after, according to the bill text.
The state approved a switch to permanent daylight saving time in 2019, which is the preferred option for many Washingtonians, but that would require approval from Congress. The issue has been brought up many times by Sen. Patty Murray, co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio. The bill, the Sunshine Protection Act, passed unanimously out of the Senate in 2022, but it failed to make it for a full vote in the House.
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This is such malarky. The DST time change is by no means the only source of circadian upset. How about air travel? Get in an airplane and fly across even one time zone and, presto, you have treated yourself to exactly the same set of effects. Something like 800 million people per year fly, most of them across time zones, and not a peep from Wilson or Dhingra, not to mention Sen. Marco Rubio, and Trump’s “DOGE” duo preparing to enter the White House who have also apparently taken up this useless crusade. The time change was established for good reasons, to help us all tailor our daily lives to the blessing of sunshine. It ain’t broke so don’t try to fix it.
How about we move the capital away from Juneau so we can save a boat load of tax dollars propping up the city. Then let the citizens decide what they want. I, for one, would love to be able to drive to an open session.
Juneau Resident
Since 1962
Amusement Park is the least of the Ruination of JUNEAU as I knew the town..
A myraid of DISGUSTING behaviors by the COMMUNITY.
THINK DISNEY LAND
All the NEGATIVES.
WE MOVED NORTH
TO HELL WITH JUNEAU AND ALL THEIR PROGRESSIVE B/S
As I understand it, the only reason that Congress hasn’t done away with Daylight Savings Time already is the resistance from a small number of representatives from states that are on the eastern edge of the Central time zone. Their complaints are either, “our schoolchildren will be getting on the bus in the dark in the morning” or “there’s no daylight left for afterschool activities”. I do understand the frustration of high latitude-short winter days but changing the clock doesn’t really DO anything about the reality. If you really want 12 hour days all year round, then move to the tropics! Personally, I LIKE short days in the winter and long days in the summer.
Continuing to change the entire nation’s official time twice a year, simply to appease a few whiners who are unwilling to adjust their local school’s start/end times to better suit the ACTUAL available daylight locally is simply absurd. There are demonstrable social costs to changing the clocks twice a year and very little advantage to a very few people in doing so. Full time DST seems to make the most sense for the most people nationally. Let’s just do that.
What’s with all the Alaskans commenting here on the wrong article? Has started happening ever since the article a few days ago about overtourism via cruise ships in Alaska. Hi folks, this article isn’t about Juneau or Alaska.
Also the link to the MSN site no longer works. Although I found a correct URL, MSN was just republishing an original story from KING5 news:
https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/state-politics/permanent-pacific-standard-time-washington-state/281-a12f1622-0356-4933-b39f-485eef8dc7ff
As for the change itself, let’s get on with it! Canada already passed legislation years ago to get rid of the time change, they’re just waiting on the USA to get its act together (as usual). If Congress can’t get it done, the states need to make a coordinated move at the state legislature level.
AI-enabled bots. They’re out of control and comment on anything they think might be relevant to their cause. (sarc)
How about just putting everyone on UTC? One timezone worldwide
Roger, wouldn’t that be like all music will now be played in 3/4 time?
Cacophony comes to mind.