WASHINGTON —On Sunday morning, Americans will once again change their clocks, moving from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time (DST).
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) continues to make the case for permanent Daylight Savings Time. This month, Rubio reintroduced his bipartisan legislation to lock the clock. Last year, the legislation was referred to as the Sunshine Protection Act. The United States Senate passed it unanimously.
“We’re one of the few countries on Earth that continues to do this ritual of springing forward and falling back and changing our clock twice a year, said Rubio.
“That makes no sense. It’s time to end it. I think we should pick one and stick with it.
“This really began back in 1918 as a practice that was supposed to save energy, and since then we've adjusted it. Today, Daylight Saving Time, which started out as six months, was extended to eight months in 2005, clearly showing you where people's preference [is].
“So we're doing this back-and-forth clock changing for about 16 weeks of Standard Time a year. I think the majority of the American people's preference is just to stop the back and forth changing. But beyond that, I think their preference is — certainly at least based on today's vote, and what we've heard — is to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. I'll just tell you a couple of the reasons why I think that's important.
“There's some strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock switching has. We see an increase in heart attacks and car accidents and pedestrian accidents in the week[s] that follow the changes.
“The benefits of Daylight Saving Time have also been accounted for in the research. For example, reduced crime as there's light later in the day. We've seen decreases in child obesity. A decrease in seasonal depression that many feel during Standard Time.
“And then the practical one, one that I've witnessed with my own eyes…. We're a country [in which] we desperately want our kids to be outside, to be playing, to be doing sports, not just to be sitting in front of a TV or a computer terminal or playing video games all day. And it gets really tough, in many parts of the country, to be able to do that. Because what ends up happening is, especially for these 16 weeks a year, if you don't have a park or an outdoor facility with lights, you're basically shut down around five p.m. — in some cases as early as four or 4:30 p.m. And these lights in parks and things like that are expensive, and then a lot of communities are resistant to them. It makes it tough to do [activities].
“I've seen it with my own eyes. I've watched youth sporting events be called in the middle or near the end of the game, before it's actually concluded, because there's not enough lights.
“That's one of the practical reasons why, if you look at the way we live in this country, you want to have the ability to spend more time in the evenings outdoors. Not just to enjoy the outdoors, but to make sporting and outdoor activities available for people at a time when, frankly, we're losing an hour, an hour-and-a-half in some parts of the country, because of [the time change].
“The good news is that we can get this passed. We don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore. Why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long is beyond me.
“Hopefully, this is the year that this gets done. And pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come.”