When does daylight saving time end this year? Why do we turn our clocks back?
Despite howls of protest from the public each fall, and the best efforts of the North Carolina Legislature, daylight saving time will end once again next month.
The annual fall shift will see the state’s residents take a step back in time after setting their clocks back one hour. That short-term gain, however, will be offset by what can seem like an eternity of early nights and ever-shrinking days.
When does daylight saving time end in 2022?
Daylight saving time, which began on March 13, will officially end at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6. meaning residents will gain an additional hour of sleep.
For those counting down the days until they can spring forward again, daylight saving time will resume on March 12, 2023.
More:Eastern North Carolina hunters: Lead fragments in deer meat could pose serious health risks
North Carolina’s efforts to make daylight saving time permanent
While few causes can be counted on to bring together North Carolina’s decidedly partisan politicians, one that almost did was the effort to make the state’s daylight saving time a year-round affair.
In 2021, state House Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, filed H.B. 307, N.C. Time Zone/Observe DST All Year, which would have provided more daylight for evening outdoor activities while accepting the tradeoff of darker morning hours for commuters and children headed to school.
H.B. 307 eventually made it to the state House floor, where it passed 100-16. The bill received strong bi-partisan support from majorities in both parties.
A companion Senate bill, filed by Sen. Vickey Sawyer, R-Iredell, also received wide support and drew prominent co-sponsors such as Deputy Pro Tem Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, and Majority Whip Sen. Jim Perry, R-Lenoir.
But despite the enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle, the bill has languished in the Senate Rules and Operations Committee, a veritable graveyard for legislation.
The state legislature has made moves to extend daylight saving time in the recent past. The N.C. Senate failed to pass a measure similar to H.B. 307 in 2019.
More:Fall's fear-filled festivities: 5 hair-raising Craven County attractions
Federal bills haven't turned back the clock, yet
The effort to make daylight saving time the year-round law of the land has also been taken up on the federal level. On March 14, the U.S. Senate voted to make daylight saving time permanent. Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Rubio sponsored the bill, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, while pointing to studies that indicate the fall time change is linked to increased heart attacks and pedestrian accidents.
After passing the Senate, however, the bill ran up against opposition in the U.S. House due to disagreements over its language. The fate of the Sunshine Protection Act remains uncertain.
The federal bill was hardly the first effort to address the public’s displeasure.
In 1973, the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act enacted year-round daylight saving time for a two-year experimental period between Jan. 6, 1974 and April 7, 1975. The experiment was cut short by Congress in October, 1974 due to concerns over dark winter mornings.
Daylight saving time has been in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s after being first tested in 1918. Year-round daylight savings time was used during World War Two and adopted again in 1973 to reduce energy use due to an oil embargo but was repealed a year later.
Since 2015, about 30 states have introduced legislation to end the twice-yearly changing of clocks. In November 2021, an Associated Press-NORC poll showed that 75% of Americans wanted to do away with the current model, while 25% approved of it.
Reporter Todd Wetherington can be reached by email at wwetherington@gannett.com. Please consider supporting local journalism by signing up for a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: When does daylight saving time end? When do we turn back the clocks?
