11 March 2015

Alaska Senate Passes Bill to Kill Daylight Savings Time


The Alaska Senate passed a bill to kill Daylight Saving Time Wednesday, voting 16-4 to send the measure to the House. The bill passed shortly after noon Alaska Daylight Time.

The bill, Senate Bill 6, also asks the U.S. Transportation Dept. to include at least some of Alaska in the Pacific Time Zone.

The sponsor of the measure, Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, said the state has the power to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, but shifting time zones is solely the prerogative of the federal government.

Not everyone agrees, of course; you can't get a random sampling of Alaskans to agree that it's daylight at noon in July.

The proposal to put the panhandle (Ketchikan/Sitka/Juneau/Haines, etc) in the Pacific time zone is interesting. That would have Juneau an hour ahead of Anchorage ...

And everyone knows the Legislature is behind the times! 

heh

9 comments:

Old NFO said...

ROTF, that'll be a years long battle! :-)

Ed Bonderenka said...

A timely decision forthcoming.

Rev. Paul said...

NFO - this is a decade of wrangling about it already. Might finally be time to get a vote on it.

Ed - I see what you did, there. :)

threecollie said...

Wish the whole darned country would do away with it.

Rev. Paul said...

threecollie - it truly makes no logical sense, now, and doesn't save anything.

drjim said...

My wife hates DST, and I don't care much for it, either.

Since I use UTC for almost everything, I have to shift gears *twice* every time the clocks change.

PST is 8 hours from UTC, but PDST is 7 hours.

8 hours I can do "in my head" automatically, but shifting the time 7 hours throws me for a loop....

Rev. Paul said...

It does seem pointless, especially to us with 22 hours of sunlight in the summer. Your mental gymnastics sound like a pain to keep track of, too.

Cathy said...

I don't know about the bill to 'kill' daylight savings time . . . but our 2 hour time adjustment from heading east from a week in AZ followed by the spring forward - just about killed us ;)

Rev. Paul said...

I understand, Cathy. I made an 11-hour adjustment in 1975, per Navy orders. It was ... quite disorienting; should probably write about that, some time.