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If you live in Illinois or one of the other states that mandate
daylight-saving time, you are in for a shock this year. Time is
changing much earlier. That's right. Last year the time changed
from standard to daylight time on April 2 and returned to standard
time on Oct. 29. If your household is anything like mine, I wait and
rely on Lincoln Daily News to put an article in Top Stories telling
me it's the Saturday the clocks are supposed to change, and
before I go to bed I adjust all the clocks in my house, saying to
myself, "Fall back, spring ahead," as I go from clock to clock in an
attempt to set them correctly.
This year the time will change to daylight time on March 11 and
back to standard time on Nov. 4, effectively giving us two extra
months of longer days.
According to the website of the
U.S. Naval
Observatory, the agency that tracks the passing of time
in the U.S., the regulation of time is under the authority of the
U.S. Congress and state governments. In 1966 Congress passed the
Uniform Time Act, providing a system of standardization for the
beginning and end of daylight time in the U.S. This act allowed
states (such as Indiana) to have exemption from the observance of
daylight time. The act provided that daylight time begin on the last
Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October, with the
change to occur at 2 a.m. local time.
For various reasons over the years, Congress has mandated changes
in the dates daylight time would begin and end. During the "energy
crisis" years of the '70s, Congress enacted legislation for earlier
starting dates. In 1974, daylight time began on Jan. 6 and in 1975
it began on Feb. 23 in an effort to save fuel and electricity
(Congress also mandated that thermostats be set no higher than 68
degrees). After those two years the starting date reverted to the
last Sunday in April.
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 In 1986, a law was passed permanently shifting the starting date
of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987.
The ending date of daylight time has not been subject to such
changes and has remained the last Sunday in October.
With the
Energy Policy Act of 2005, the starting and ending dates have
once again been shifted. Beginning in 2007, daylight time will start
on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in
November. In 2008 daylight time will begin on March 9 and end on
Nov. 2. This is a small section of the Energy Policy Act of 2005,
but it is perhaps the most controversial, primarily because there is
doubt if daylight savings actually results in a net energy savings.
There are two possible repercussions from changing the dates we
change time. First, and possibly with great consequences, the
computer systems we rely on for everything from balancing our
checkbooks and tracking financial markets to the computers that
regulate electricity, water, natural gas and every other mechanism
out there might get fouled up with this early time change. Computer
experts fear that this might trigger mini-Y2K incidents, resulting
in significant losses of money in the financial markets, the
disruption of power and energy, and other problems related to
computer controls. However, they should be reminded that the first
Y2K, which caused great fear and panic that the world as we knew it
would end, turned out to be quite benign.
The second consequence is somewhat personal. This date change
changes the ditty by which most people remember how to change the
clocks, since the change to daylight time will now take place during
the winter instead of the spring. "Fall back, winter ahead" doesn't
have quite the same rhyme and reason to it, besides being confusing.
Ah well, the result will probably be that some of us will be either
very early or very late to church, while others will sleep in and
avoid any added anxiety.
[Jim
Youngquist]
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