Daylight Saving Time Back in the News

Daylight Saving Time is back in the news after Florida's U.S. Senators introduced a bill in Congress that would keep the United States on Daylight Saving Time through November 7, 2021.

The legislation, introduced by Florida Senators' Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, will "provide one year of stability for families who are already dealing with enough change with virtual learning, work from home, and other disruptions the COVID-19 pandemic has placed into our daily lives."  This according to a press release from Senator Rubio's staff.

Senator Rubio goes on to say:

More daylight in the after school hours is critical to helping families and children endure this challenging school year. Studies have shown many benefits of a year-round Daylight Saving Time, and while I believe we should make it permanent all year around, I urge my colleagues to — at the very least — work with me to avoid changing the clocks this fall.

Back in March, right around the start of Daylight Saving Time, I wrote an article that pointed out whatever we do with Daylight Saving Time people won't be happy. I used Cartographer Andy Woodruff's program to figure out that adopting Daylight Saving Time in Missouri would cause us to have more days where the sun rises at 7:00AM or later. Staying on Standard Time year round would fix that problem, however, we'd lose most of our post 8:00PM CDT sunsets.

Bottom line, Daylight Saving Time year round will mean darker mornings, but later sunsets. And I agree with Senator Rubio that more daylight after school might be beneficial to families. Especially this year.

I personally think this could be the year to rip the band-aid off and adopt Daylight Saving Time permanently. I think once we experience it, most of us won't want to switch back. The real question is whether or not Congress will even consider acting on this legislation.