“Spring ahead, fall back,” Susan Kohl Malone said as she argued that daylight saving time should not become permanent. The assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing said changing clock times is not good for people, but the bill now in the Senate would lock Americans out of sync with the sun.
She said the appeal is easy to grasp. “That sounds wonderful: more light after work and school, longer evenings.” But she added: “But there’s a catch — making daylight saving time permanent does not create a single additional minute of daylight.”
Sunshine Protection Act and
The Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time permanent, and Malone said the effect would be to move an hour of winter light from the morning to the evening. A December sunrise in Boston would slip past 8 a.m., and in Indianapolis it would slip past 9 a.m., putting the change squarely into the commute and school day.
That is the practical difference for people who start early. Under permanent daylight saving time, early-shift workers and commuters would leave in darkness, and an 8:30 a.m. bell would feel like 7:30 by the sun. Malone said adolescents would be forced to wake before their brains are ready to learn.
House of Representatives
The House of Representatives voted in July to end the twice-a-year clock change, but the bill now in the Senate would go further by making daylight saving time permanent. The United States made daylight saving time permanent in 1974, then Congress reversed that experiment after one winter.
That history leaves the Senate with a narrower choice than the public debate suggests. Changing the clocks twice a year is one problem; keeping daylight saving time all year is another, and Malone’s argument is that the second option does not solve the first. It would simply redistribute light away from winter mornings and into evenings, where it does not help people who need daylight before school or work.
Would the Senate pass the Sunshine Protection Act and end the twice-a-year clock change? Malone’s view is that the better fix is later school start times and standard time, not permanent daylight saving time.
