Daylight Saving Time Would Become Year-Round Under Michigan Proposal: Poll

Pick a time, Daylight Saving Time or Standard Time; state Rep. Pete Lucindo, a Shelby Township Republican, isn’t picky about which. Just pick one and stop the twice annual clock changing, which takes place at 2 a.m. Sunday as Americans (most of us anyway) spring forward one hour and set our clocks to Daylight Saving Time.

Lucindo’s idea isn’t new. He and another Michigan legislator, Rep. Jeff Irwin, an Ann Arbor Democrat, have proposed an end to the dance between Daylight Saving and Standard Time, in the past but their proposals haven’t gained any steam.

They ran into opposition from the Michigan tourism industry officials, who said eliminating longer days would hurt golf courses and other businesses that flourish during warm weather months.

However, Lucindo said mounting research, including a study by Boston Medical Center that showed Daylight Saving Time contributes to higher miscarriage rates among some women undergoing in vitro fertilization. That’s on top of research from University of Michigan cardiologist Dr. Hitinder Gurm that showed a 25 percent surge in heart attacks on the first full work day after the time switch.

Tired kids who can’t stay awake in school, an increase and workplace accidents and even stressed out dairy cows after clocks spring forward are all reasons to pick a time and stick with it, according to Lucindo.

“Anybody who wants to continue this is cuckoo,” Lucindo told the Detroit Free Press.

Count among the not-cuckoo lawmakers in Hawaii and Arizona, who have declined to go along with the rest of the country. In Arizona, where the temperature can routinely reach a scorching 115 degrees, it’s a matter of retaining earlier sunsets and cooler evening temperatures. However, Daylight Saving Time is observed on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, which surrounds the Hopi Reservation, which doesn’t.

Because Hawaii is far south of mainland states with a latitude similar to Mexico City, lawmakers haven’t seen the need to increase the hours of daylight.

The U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands also don’t observe Daylight Saving Time.
Lucindo’s bill, HB 4011, is among 22 bills in 13 state legislatures across the country related to Daylight Saving Time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twelve of those bills would establish year-round Standard Time.

Lucindo’s is different in that it would set Michigan’s official time zone as Eastern Daylight Saving Time year-round, unlike previous legislative attempts that would have put the state on year-round Eastern Standard Time.

Though his bill specifically calls for year-round Daylight Saving Time, Lucindo told MLive.com he just wants to end the twice annual ritual.

“So let’s just either fall back and stay there or spring forward and stay there, and never have to go change a clock, never go have to go change a watch, never have to worry about what time this clock says and what time that clock says,” he said.
Irwin, thinks Lucindo’s bill balances the tourism industry’s concerns.

“I must say, the recreation industry got to me and said, ‘Why not go to Daylight Saving all year? That would be good for golfing and outdoor cafes and all kinds of activities because you'd have more evening hours' “ of light, Irwin told th Free Press.

The bill is sure to face opposition. Some legislators representing parts of the Upper Peninsula, where four counties are on Central Standard Time like neighboring Wisconsin, aren’t keen on the idea to make Eastern Daylight Saving Time Michigan’s official time zone.

Daylight Saving Time has been around in one form or another in the United States since World War I. Benjamin Franklin is often credited with inventing Daylight Saving Time, but in fact, he only advocated that Americans change their sleep habits and get up an hour earlier so they wouldn’t be bothered by sun in their eyes, as he was.

The first known advocate of Daylight Saving Time was Englishman William Willett in 1905. His proposal to move clocks ahead by 80 minutes between April and October was rejected by the English Parliament, though.

The United States has used Daylight Saving Time off and on since 1918 as a wartime measure, but the current federal policy was first enacted in 1966 as the Uniform Time Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It has changed several times since then — notably in 1974, when Congress extended Daylight Saving Time to 10 months of the year following the 1973 oil embargo. But it was controversial, as many complained children were forced to go to school in the dark on winter mornings, endangering their lives.

Most of the changes have dealt with starting and ending dates. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 took effect in 2007 and called for clocks to “spring forward” on the second Sunday of March and “fall back” on the first Sunday in November.

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