Daylight savingime ends at 2 a.m. Sunday. Yes, it's that time of year again.
Most of the United States will "fall back" into standard time, getting an extra hour of sleep ahead of the upcoming winter. Much of the nation will "spring forward" again when daylight saving time begins again at 2 a.m. on March 8, 2026.
Many U.S. residents are exhausted by the biannual switch. Several states, including Wyoming, have passed trigger bills that will make daylight saving time permanent, provided enough neighboring states do the same.
However, many people believe the nation shouldn't make that mistake (again). There's a growing coalition advocating for permanent standard time, meaning the clock would fall back one more time and never spring forward.
"We should fall back and forget about it," said Jay Pea, president of Safe Standard Time and co-chair for the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time. "When we spring forward in March, we're pretending it's an hour later than it actually is and mandating that everybody get out of bed an hour earlier than they should. We need to stick to standard time."
Federal Standard, Not Sun Standard
The United States first tried daylight saving time during World War I, but it didn't become a federal standard until much later. Rea called it "a social engineering experiment gone wrong."
"DST was invented during World War I as a war-rationing effort," he said. "It mandated people to wake up earlier to try to squeeze more labor out of everybody."
Many nations temporarily adopted DST during World War I and World War II, only to repeal it when the conflicts ended. The United States decided to stick with it, making it a federal standard with Lyndon Johnson's Uniform Time Act of 1966.
One of Pea's many problems with DST is that it goes against the natural order of things. DST might be a federal standard, but it's not the sun standard.
"The natural clock is set to the sun standard time," he said. "When the sun reaches its most southerly and highest point, that's high noon. That's 12 p.m., and you divide the hours from there. It was the clock that I was taught in rural Iowa by my great-grandparents, the honest-to-God sundial time."
Arizona and Hawaii are the only states on permanent standard time, meaning they don't bother to fall back or spring forward. Meanwhile, the national momentum has recently favored permanent DST.
In 2022, then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio presented the Sunshine Protection Act in the U.S. Senate, which would have made DST permanent nationwide.
It passed by unanimous consent, with Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso praising it, but failed to pass the House of Representatives.
Two years earlier, the Wyoming Legislature passed a trigger law that would make DST permanent when three other Western states passed similar bills. Montana and Utah have passed their own DST bills, but a third Western state has yet to do the same.
Pea is aware of this shift toward permanent DST and is actively working to reverse it.
Third Time's The Charm?
While DST has been a federal standard for decades, permanent DST has been tried in the United States twice before.
"We did it during World War II in the 1940s, and again during the oil crisis in the 1970s," Pea said. "It was supposed to last for two years in the 1970s, but people started to complain about it immediately and it was repealed after 10 months."
The reason? In addition to darker mornings and earlier evenings in winter, Rea said the death count was unconscionably high.
"Sadly, several children were killed (by vehicles) during those 10 months," he said. "It still happens every year in October. Children are struck by vehicles because the sun doesn't rise until around 7:30 a.m., the roads are too dark, and people aren't getting enough sleep."
Pea said these deaths would have been easily preventable, because they happened during the extra hours of darkness that result from DST. That would make a tremendous difference in Wyoming.
"In Wyoming, you rarely see the sunrise after 8 a.m.," he said. "That's important, because most school and workdays start at 8 a.m. People need morning light to wake up, feel good, stay healthy, stay alert, stay productive, and stay safe throughout their days."
If Wyoming adopted permanent DST, Pea said Wyoming's sunrise could come as late as 9 a.m. for three to four months out of the year. Conversely, the sun would set later.
However, he doesn't think those dark mornings factored into anyone's thinking when Wyoming and other states passed their permanent DST bills.
"When the states were looking at Permanent DST, they weren't looking at the history and the science and discussing which clock to keep," he said. "They were only looking at getting rid of the clock change. We tried DST in the 1970s, and it didn't work."
Fore?
Who wants permanent DST? The most common answer most people think that would be are farmers, who get an extra hour of evening light during the summer. But the agricultural industry has been one of the most vigorous opponents of DST since its inception.
Pea said the driving force behind permanent DST is actually another industry that benefits from longer evenings of summer sunlight. It links back to the links.
"It's largely lobbyists for leisure spending, mainly the golf lobby," he said. "Whenever there's a bill proposing the elimination of DST, the golf lobby shows up, says they're going to lose a billion dollars if the sun sets at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., and the bill gets stalled."
Pea called this a "silly concern," saying that making standard time permanent hasn't impacted the golfing industry in Arizona and Hawaii. And while only 9% of Americans play golf, one-third of Americans are sleep-deprived, he said.
Pea also noted that permanent DST is against federal law, which is why it requires passage in the Senate and the House, as well as the president's signature, before it can be enacted nationwide.
That's why so many states have passed bills ready to adopt permanent DST, but nothing's happened yet.
"It's really easy to pass a bill in a state that says we want permanent DST, because you can pass it and then you can't put it into play," Pea said. "There's no immediate consequence. I fear that if we try permanent DST again, it will be a third disaster. It'll get repealed, and then we'll be back to square one."
Pick Your Poison
Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day doesn't have a preference between DST and PST.
"My preference is not to have to change it twice a year," he said. "I'm somebody who gets up at ungodly hours of the morning, but I think it has a much bigger impact on those people than your normal 8-5 jobs."
From Day's perspective, there are pros and cons to standard time. Wyoming's winter mornings are brighter, but evening commutes would be darker and more dangerous.
"With standard time, the sun's going down mid to late afternoon, and it can be completely dark by 5 p.m.," he said. "In winter, the roads can be wet during the day and icy at the time most people are heading home. A lot of people are driving in winter, so that's been an issue."
With PST, the sun would set an hour earlier during the summer when Wyoming's weather is at its best. Day believes that would be noticeable, especially for anyone who enjoys the outdoors.
"Whether you're out on your patio or hiking in the mountains, your outdoor stuff, the sun would be going down earlier on the clock," he said.
Rea noted that PST during the summer would mean less time for evening activities. He believes most people who advocate for Permanent DST primarily enjoy the extra sunlight of summer.
"We only do DST in the summer because that's when the sun is coming up earlier," he said. "Everybody likes an extra hour of daylight to barbecue or play catch with the kids. Those are sympathetic arguments, but we shouldn't deprive ourselves of sleep to do so."
The switch from DST to Standard Time can disrupt people's sleep schedules, especially if they're used to waking up either in daylight or in darkness. Even Day isn't immune to that.
"That's why I hate changing it twice a year," he said. "It takes me several weeks for my sleeping patterns to adjust."
Time Zone Deserts
The Sunshine Protection Act making DST permanent has been introduced in Congress and shut down four times since 2018. Earlier this week, Florida Sen. Rick Scott attempted to fast-track the bill, arguing it was about "states' rights."
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton thwarted that effort, citing many of the same reasons as Pea and the Coalition for permanent standard time. Cotton didn't go that far, saying, "Not every human problem has a legislative solution."
If permanent standard time is the right solution, the best way to achieve it is through legislative action. Wyoming could pass a bill adopting permanent standard time and have it take effect immediately, but that comes with its own complications.
"PST is federally pre-approved, but that makes it a little scarier for state legislators," Pea said. "If you exempt yourself from DST, you become a time zone desert. If Wyoming adopted PST, the people of Cheyenne would be worried because Colorado would be on a different clock. That's a legitimate concern."
The Coalition is advocating for the same states that passed DST trigger bills to pass PST trigger bills. Wyoming could be "a real piece in the puzzle," according to Pea.
"Wyoming could pass a bill saying it'll stick to PST when Colorado agrees to do it," he said. "Then, I can go to Colorado and say, 'If Wyoming is willing to do this, would you be willing to do it if Utah did it too?' Then, I can go to Utah with Wyoming and Colorado, and we've already got Arizona, so let's do this."
Pea hopes that state legislatures will consider a regional pact solution in favor of PST that would "fall back and (never) go back." Within a few years, the same precedent could stretch across the nation.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
