Time’s long past up for twice-yearly clock-changing | Steve Collins
On Halloween this year, the sun will set in Portland at 5:33 p.m. One day later, for no good reason, sunset on Sunday will occur 61 minutes earlier after a return to “standard time.”
Here in Maine, there is clear and robust support for a return to a single, year-round time — a move that would end confusion, keep our daily routines on schedule and remove one little irritant from our busy lives.
In Washington, D.C., they just can’t get on the same page. The U.S. House agreed by a wide margin over the summer that the nation should stop changing its clocks twice a year. Both U.S. Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree joined the majority in favor of the proposal.
But despite their support for the bill, it remains stalled in the Senate, which specializes in making sure nothing much happens on Capitol Hill.
Both of Maine’s senators, Republican Susan Collins and independent Angus King, favor leaving daylight saving time permanently in place.
Collins once said changing the clocks twice annually “has been linked to higher rates of accidents, depression and other health issues.”
Advertisement
“Like many Maine people, I’m tired of 4 p.m. sunsets and time-change whiplash that throws our collective routines out of whack,” King said.
Even President Donald Trump, a man who is wrong about almost everything, recognized that “a vast majority of the country want it” and called this week for passage of the measure.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson said during a July debate that he wants to leave daylight saving time in place year-round because he knows some Maine children have long bus rides to school. They’ll be safer, he said, if there is more light for early-morning winter bus runs.
State Sen. Rick Bennett, the independent gubernatorial candidate from Oxford, convinced his colleagues in the Legislature last year to unanimously endorse a bill to end the clock-changing shuffle we experience twice a year.
Bennett told lawmakers at the time, “I am overwhelmed by the increasing numbers of people I hear from who ask, ‘Why do we bother to change our clocks for four months of the year?’ Like these folks, I find this practice is anachronistic and lacking in common sense.”
Of course, getting rid of something just because it is “anachronistic and lacking in common sense” has never worked out smoothly in the nation’s capital, especially when a smattering of senators don’t want to see common sense prevail.
Advertisement
Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, one of the naysayers, said that “if permanent daylight saving time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans.”
We in Maine know something about dark and dismal winters.
We also know that whatever time our clocks say will have no impact at all on the nature of our winters. They will remain, as always, too cold, with too little daylight.
There aren’t many issues where I think we ought to give Trump a win. This is one of them.
It’s past time to have my microwave’s clock be reasonably accurate all year long.
Copy the Story Link
Tagged: columns
Steve Collins became an opinion columnist for the Maine Trust for Local News in April of 2025. A journalist since 1987, Steve has worked for daily newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Maine and served. More by Steve Collins
