Daylight Saving Time Year-round? There's Bipartisan Support For The ...

LANSING, MI — A bill introduced in March 2021 that would put the state on the summer schedule daylight saving time year-round has yet to see movement in the Senate after the same measure passed in the Michigan House last April.

The sponsor of the Senate’s version of the bill, Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said Monday he would be happy to support the Republican-sponsored House bill should a renewed push to advance the measures reach the Senate. In 2021, Michigan joined dozens of states that have already passed measures to observe one permanent time through the entire calendar.

Read more: Michigan House supports eliminating twice-a-year time changes pending Congressional action

Irwin’s SB 231, introduced in March 2021, would observe daylight saving time as the year-round standard time in Michigan with Congressional approval and as long as Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania made the change as well.

This would include both the part of Michigan that is in the Eastern Time Zone and the part that is in the Central Time Zone. Four counties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, and Menominee— observe Central Time. The rest of Michigan is on Eastern Time.

It’s because of daylight saving time that Americans get an extra hour of sun at the end of the day in March but one less hour in bed. While some welcome the time changes as a marker of a new season, others are quick to point out the internal disarray it causes many. There’s also research that indicates increases in negative health outcomes as a result of the March and November time changes.

“Daylight saving time leads to increased traffic and workplace accidents, higher rates of strokes and heart attacks, and decreased rates of workplace productivity,” Irwin said. “The twice a year time change has no benefits for our state, and we should stop doing it immediately.”

Mayo Clinic researchers found a significant increase in adverse medical events that could be caused by human error in the week after the annual time change in March. Their study, published in 2021, saw increases in patient safety incidents in the week following the transition into and out of DST.

The Michigan House voted 87-22 to advance their own version of the bill to move to year-round DST in April 2021. That bill was sponsored by Rep. Michelle Hoitenga, R-Manton. The Senate never took up a vote on the measure.

Irwin speculated Monday that the measures stalled due to “a combination of less interest on our side... maybe partisan alignment helped get (the House bill) moving,” he said. “I’ve spoken with Hoitenga, and am happy to support her bill if we can get the conversation rolling.”

Federal law allows any state that lies entirely within one time zone the ability to exempt itself from changing time if that law provides that the entire state shall observe the standard time otherwise applicable during that period.

In fact, two states in the union already do not observe daylight savings time: Hawaii and Arizona, which permanently switched to standard time in 1968 due to extreme heat. The Navajo Nation, which spans across three states and covers northeastern Arizona, does observe DST so that neighboring tribal communities in Utah and New Mexico are all on the same time.

DST was first implemented in the U.S. in 1918 during WWI, as an energy-saving strategy.

Over the years, the U.S. Congress has established, repealed, re-established, and ultimately mandated standards for the observance of DST. Most recently, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 amended the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to provide that DST begins at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November.

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Michigan lawmakers introduce bills to keep daylight saving time all year