When does daylight saving time end in 2022 and why do we still have it?

On the morning of Sunday Nov. 6, daylight saving time will once again come to an end.

Clocks will fall back one hour at 2 a.m., and we'll gain that hour of sleep.

The sun will start rising earlier in the morning, but the tradeoff is that it won't set after 7 p.m. in Columbus again until March.

So why is daylight saving time even a thing?

With the start of fall ― cue the sweaters, campfires and pumpkins ― here's a brief explainer on what the practice is, how it started, and the effort by some states to make it permanent.

How did daylight saving ― not savings ― time start?

In 1966, the Uniform Time Act was signed into law, establishing nationwide standards for the observance of daylight saving time.

Prior to then, daylight saving time in the United States was not regulated by the federal government, leaving municipalities, cities and states the choice of whether or not to observe the practice, and if so, when it started and ended.

The Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education says: "This haphazard approach to managing our country's standard time left transportation industries, including railroads, trucking, and airlines, with complex and constantly shifting time schedules."

By the mid-20th century, the emerging broadcast television industry also was finding it difficult to work within the patchwork time zones and standards, according to the Byrd Center.

The start and end dates for daylight saving time in the United States has since shifted over the years.

Who came up with daylight saving time?

The practice was first suggested in an essay by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

But the first true proponent of daylight saving time was an English builder named William Willet.

In 1907, Willett published a pamphlet called "The Waste of Daylight" that campaigned for advancing clocks in spring and turning them back in fall, according to the National Museum of Scotland. He also encouraged people to get out of bed earlier in the summer to make the most of daylight.

"Everyone appreciates the long light evenings," Willett wrote in the pamphlet. "Everyone laments their shrinkage as autumn approaches, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the clear bright light of early morning during spring and summer months, is so seldom seen or used. Nevertheless standard time remains so fixed, that for nearly half the year the sun shines upon the land, for several hours each day while we are asleep."

Should the U.S. end daylight saving time?

No one actually likes losing or gaining an hour of sleep for the sake of more daylight, do they?

Recent polls found that only 35% of Americans want to keep resetting their clocks every fall and spring, while 59% want to see daylight saving time made permanent.

That sentiment appears to have translated to legislative action.

"In the last four years, 19 states (including Ohio) have enacted legislation or passed resolutions to provide for year-round daylight saving time, if Congress were to allow such a change, and in some cases, if surrounding states enact the same legislation," Jim Reed of the National Conference of State Legislatures told USA TODAY in November 2021.

The key phrase there is if Congress were to allow such a change.

Under the Uniform Time Act, the only power individual states or territories have is to opt out of daylight saving time, putting them on standard time permanently. That's what Arizona, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have done.

A switch to year-round daylight saving time really involves redrawing the nation's time zones. For Ohio, that would mean moving to Atlantic Time, the time zone for Puerto Rico, much of the Caribbean and Canada's Maritime provinces. So, despite what the states want to do, a switch to year-round daylight saving time requires a change to federal law.

Members of the United States Senate, by some accounts groggy from losing an hour of sleep over the weekend, passed a bill in March that would make daylight saving time permanent across the U.S. beginning in 2023.

But the bill still requires House approval and President Joe Biden's signature to become law.

Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news.

mtrombly@dispatch.com

@monroetrombly

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Daylight saving time 2022: When does it end?