Permanent Daylight Saving Time: What It Would Mean For Arizona

ARIZONA — Although the national push to make daylight saving time permanent in 2023 would not impact Arizona directly, it would put the state permanently in line with one time zone.

A unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate Tuesday will send the Sunshine Protection Act to the House of Representatives.

While it's not guaranteed that the House will take up the measure, the Senate vote shows that many across the country are ready to end the twice-a-year “spring forward, fall back” tradition. Most states have some sort of legislation on daylight saving time, more commonly known as daylight savings time.

We all know that the majority of Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time, but we do have to deal with a switch in time zone alignment every six months, while we stay on the same time and everyone else changes. The only part of Arizona that does observe daylight saving time is the Navajo Nation.

If the Sunshine Protection Act becomes law, Arizona would not have to change time to comply, it would simply remain on Mountain Standard Time, which lines up with Pacific Time, instead of changing in alignment with Pacific or Mountain times every six months.

The Arizona Legislature rejected daylight saving time in 1968, after the state sprang forward and fell back in 1967 for the first time since WWII, according to the Pima County Library.

Arizonans did not like springing forward since it meant the sun set an hour later into the evening, making nighttime outdoor summer activities less desirable on blazing hot summer days. Arizonans agreed overwhelmingly at the time that they did not want another hour of daytime sunlight.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and the chief sponsor of the bill, said in remarks on the Senate floor "it's an idea whose time has come.”

"You'll see it's an eclectic collection of members of the United States Senate in favor of what we've just done here in the Senate, and that's to pass a bill to make daylight savings time permanent," Rubio said in remarks on the Senate floor. “Just this past weekend, we all went through that biannual ritual of changing the clock back and forth and the disruption that comes with it. And one has to ask themselves after a while, why do we keep doing it?”

Hawaii is the only other state besides Arizona that does not observe daylight saving time. Because Hawaii is far south of mainland states, with a latitude similar to Mexico City's, lawmakers there haven’t seen the need to increase the hours of daylight. The U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands also don’t observe daylight saving time.

At least 22 states have introduced legislation this year to switch to year-round daylight saving time, year-round standard time or allow voters to decide the issue, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Another 18 have trigger laws on the books that would take effect if Congress were to allow such a change.

Daylight saving time has been around since World War I. But it became the law of the land more than 50 years ago with the Uniform Time Act of 1966, though the exact dates — now the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November — have changed some over the years.

Who really benefits from the time change?

Proponents may argue that longer evenings motivate people to get out of the house. The extra hour of daylight can be used for outdoor recreation such as golf, soccer, baseball, running and more. It also benefits the tourism industry.

However, critics say the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. The time change can mess with our body clocks and circadian rhythms, making for some restless nights and sleepy days. It also is difficult to quantify the economic cost of the collective tiredness caused by daylight saving time, but studies have found a decrease in productivity after the spring transition.