By Bonita Wilborn
On April 20, 2021, Alabama’s Senate unanimously passed bill SB388, which authorized the state to observe Daylight Saving Time permanently. Sixteen days later, the Alabama House of Representatives also gave its green light to the bill, passing HB93-1 on May 6, 2021. Governor Kay Ivey wasted no time signing the bill into law only seven days later, on May 13, 2021.
But don’t get too excited just yet. In reality, states currently don’t have the authority to make that call for themselves. Daylight Saving Time was mandated by federal law under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, so it literally takes an act of Congress to allow states to adopt it permanently. Therefore, as citizens of the United States, we currently “spring forward” in March to Daylight Saving Time and “fall back” in November to return to Standard Time.
The idea of aligning waking hours to daylight hours to conserve candles was first proposed in 1784 by none other than Benjamin Franklin. In a letter to the editor of The Journal of Paris, Franklin suggested that waking up earlier in the summer would economize on candle usage; and calculated considerable savings. For the next 182 years, the idea was kicked around various times and even instigated in many different countries at different times, particularly since the 1970s energy crisis. That gives credence to the notion that Daylight Saving Time must preserve energy, whether we in Alabama want to admit it or not.
Alabama is one of 21 states currently awaiting Congressional approval for Daylight Saving Time adoption as its official time, all the time. The other states are Minnesota, Montana, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Ohio, and Wyoming. Hawaii and most of Arizona already do not observe daylight saving time, opting for permanent standard time since the 1960s.
The Sunshine Protection Act, a bill to make Daylight Saving Time the new, permanent time, was unanimously passed by the United States Senate on March 15, 2022. However, the bill now awaits a United States House of Representatives vote. If the act becomes law, the bill will make daylight saving the new, permanent standard time as of November 5, 2023. That means clocks would not change in November. However, it is unclear if the House will vote on the Sunshine Protection Act this year.
So, like it or not, even though the legislature of the state of Alabama has already passed it, until the Sunshine Protection Act is passed by the United States House of Representatives, just like clockwork, every March, your clocks will spring forward and every November your clocks will fall back. It’s out of our hands’ folks.