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    • When is summer time? Halloween helped change the date.
    Duluth

    When is summer time? Halloween helped change the date.

    Eira Gwyneth Posted on

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    After a long night of trick-or-treating and perhaps staying up late to indulge in the loot or attend a Halloween party, there’s a built-in reprieve: The end of Daylight Saving Time means we’ll get an extra hour of sleep this weekend.

    It is no coincidence that the time change occurs after the holiday. Until about two decades ago, daylight saving time ended on the last Sunday in October rather than on the first Sunday in November as it does today. This would make sunset an hour earlier, meaning the children would have less daylight to go door to door.

    The goal of daylight saving time is to save energy by changing clocks for part of the year to better align daylight with the times of day when people are working or at school. When (and whether) the clocks will change has been controversial for years, as lawmakers and advocates argued over the timing.

    The current goal of many is to eliminate an intrusive twice-yearly time change, but lawmakers in the early 2000s came up with a different solution: postponing the clock change dates by a few weeks.

    The plan, contained in a bill passed by Congress in 2005 and signed into law in 2007, was primarily intended to save energy (the extension of daylight saving time theoretically meant less time needed for lighting in the evening). But there was support from lawmakers who expressed concerns about children’s safety on Halloween and from lobbyists who said the change would have a positive impact on sales in their industries.

    Not only did daylight saving time end after Halloween, but it also began two weeks earlier than before.

    Somewhat ironically, the US now says that only about four months of the year should be standard time – from early November to early March.

    A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time

    Daylight saving time was first introduced in the United States in 1918 when the Standard Time Act was enacted to save fuel costs. However, after the end of the First World War, it was quickly reversed at the national level and only re-emerged at the beginning of the Second World War.

    From February 1942 to September 1945, the United States experienced the so-called “wartime” when Congress decided to implement daylight saving time year-round during the war to save fuel. After it ended, states were free to set their own standard time until Congress finally passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized national time and established what is now known as daylight saving time.

    In the 1970s, daylight saving time was temporarily reintroduced permanently during the oil embargo crisis.

    How Halloween Influenced Daylight Saving Time

    After 1966, daylight saving time was introduced from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. Twenty years later, in 1986, it was changed to begin on the first Sunday in April instead.

    In order to save energy, lawmakers have been trying for years to extend summer time even further. In 2005, this finally became a reality and Daylight Saving Time as we know it today became law. Now it runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, notably extending beyond Halloween.

    Aside from the energy savings, lawmakers at the time said extending Daylight Saving Time to Halloween would make the night safer for children. Studies show Halloween is still the deadliest night of the year for pedestrians, but advocates say an extra hour of daylight for trick-or-treaters would make a difference.

    RECOVER: Ready for an extra hour of sleep? Summer time ends here in 2024

    On the other hand, some child safety advocates, including the National Parent Teacher Association, opposed the change because they feared it would mean more morning commute times spent in the dark and pose a danger to children walking to school or boarding a bus would have to wait.

    More than once, before the 2005 energy law extended daylight saving time, lawmakers considered a Halloween safety law that would do the same thing but was not enacted.

    “Between saving energy, reducing traffic accidents and keeping children safe on Halloween, there are many benefits to extending daylight saving time – not to mention that the extra hour of sunshine in the evening will help ward off the winter blues,” said the former MP Michigan, Fred Upton said this in a 2009 press release after daylight saving time went into effect.

    According to some reports, the candy industry was also involved in extending daylight saving time.

    Michael Downing, author of “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time,” told NPR in 2007 that candy lobbyists “wanted to cover trick-or-treating through daylight saving time because they assumed that if children had an extra hour of daylight , you will collect more candy.

    Senator Ed Markey, then representing Massachusetts, told the New York Times that energy and security were the drivers of change, not the candy industry. And confectionery industry representatives denied the connection.

    Meanwhile, retailers said this would boost business as people would shop more in the evenings before dark.

    READ MORE: Beggar’s Night takes place on Halloween Day for the first time since 1938 in Des Moines, Iowa

    Some people now want permanent summer time

    Several states have enacted measures that would allow daylight saving time year-round. The only problem is that federal law prohibits it.

    States are allowed to have permanent standard time, which is the case in Hawaii, the non-Navajo portions of Arizona, and some territories. To make daylight saving time permanent, Congress would have to pass a law allowing it.

    A bill that passed the Senate in 2022 but has since stalled would make year-round daylight saving time the law of the land. The Sunshine Protection Act was introduced by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio and other proponents of a permanent daylight saving time change argue that the benefits include more time for outdoor activities or work in the evening hours and that it saves energy.

    Many experts agree that time changes cause health and even safety problems, but some experts believe that year-round standard time would be better.

    “It’s time to stop the clock and end the ridiculous and antiquated practice of turning our clocks back and forth,” Rubio said.

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    Eira Gwyneth
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