A comprehensive summary of legislation relating to Daylight Saving Time including 31 bills in 21 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington.

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Legislative Summary – Saturday, March 21, 2015
A comprehensive summary of legislation relating to Daylight Saving Time including 31 bills in 21 states:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi,
Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
Welcome Intro
Welcome to Time Zone Report’s comprehensive Legislative Summary, a service of GoodClix,
Incorporated.
Today is Saturday, March 21, 2015.
Headlines Into
This podcast is a full summary of the current state of legislation relating to Daylight Saving Time and
Time Zones within the United States.
Our last comprehensive summary was about a month ago on February 16, and there have been 4
updates and one Topic Brief podcast since then. You can skip the updates, but I’d highly recommend
listening to the “Year-Round Daylight Saving Time” topic brief… check it out.
In today’s summary we’ll cover the US states geographically, starting on the east coast and moving to
the west.
Lastly we’ll recap by listing the states grouped by what their legislators are intending to accomplish,
whether it is:
1. Proposing to eliminate DST.
2. Attempting to adopt Year-Round DST.
3. Requesting Congress to permit Year-Round DST.
4. Other DST-related bills.
Let’s get to the details… starting in the eastern US.
North-Eastern States
In general, states along the northern stretch along the Atlantic Ocean aren’t looking at any changes to
DST, but the states of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania both had legislation this session to proclaim the

2. week before the second Sunday in March as “Sleep Awareness Week”. Along with this proclamation,
state government offices will provide educational material to help their citizens to be sure to get plenty
of sleep in the week before DST starts in the US.
South-Eastern States
Way down south in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, though, they are hankering for Year-Round DST.
There was one bill each in Mississippi and Florida to put their states right on Year-Round DST – to heck
with the fact that federal statutes don’t permit this option. The Mississippi bill was quickly killed in
committee, but the Florida bill was “read in” on March 3, with no additional action since then.
Alabama, however, has recently seen Senate Joint Resolution 6 filed and sponsored by Senator Rusty
Glover. If you’ve been following Time Zone Report since early February, you may recall that we
anticipated Senator Glover would introduce a bill similar to Mississippi and Florida, but he figured out
early – with the help of the Alabama governor’s office – that this bill wouldn’t fly. So instead he has
followed the lead of the states of Washington and Nevada with his Resolution which asks the President
and US Department of Transportation to allow states to switch to Year-Round DST. While the language
of the Alabama bill doesn’t exactly follow that of Washington and Nevada and actually misses on a
couple of small technical points, it’s a move in the right direction.
And here at Time Zone Report, we’re advising other states with Year-Round DST intentions to follow
suit. It would be great if Mississippi and Florida would do the same.
Time Zone and DST Regulations
So let’s take a bit of a side-bar here. I mentioned just now that Year-Round DST is not permitted by
federal statutes. You can go to TimeZoneReport.com and read the statute yourself by clicking the
“More Info” menu and selecting the “Rules and Regulations” page, which has link for 15 USC 260a. This
statute says a couple of things:
1. First of all, it lays out the standard start and end of DST, which we know starts the second
Sunday in March and ends the first Sunday in November.
2. Secondly, it lays out the ground rules if a state wants to exempt itself, or “opt out of”, the
changeover dates.
3. Thirdly, it specifically states that if any state or other political unit makes a law that differs from
this section, this section supersedes whatever difference there is.
4. And lastly, this regulation authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to enforce obedience to
this regulation by suing in US district court.
As long as we’re visiting the federal statute page, there’s another link on our web site just a little farther
down that will bring up the entire Subchapter IX called “Standard Time”, which actually includes some
additional interesting information. In section 260, it authorizes and directs the Secretary of

3. Transportation to “foster and promote widespread and uniform adoption and observance of the same
standard of time within and throughout each such standard time zone”. Farther down are the specific
designations of Time Zones.
There’s one other rule of interest, and that is Executive Order 11751 from December 15, 1973, which
authorizes the Secretary of Transportation “to grant or deny an exemption or realignment”, which the
DOT has done on several occasions at the county level. There is an interesting provision I want to
mention here – this will come up in a moment. This authority to realign time zones at a state level is
restricted to a request that is “pursuant to a proclamation of a Governor of a State finding that the
exemption or realignment is necessary to avoid undue hardship or to conserve fuel in the State or a part
thereof.”
Great Lakes States
Up around the Great Lakes, there’s a bill in early February from Illinois, and one this last week from the
state of Michigan.
Representative Bill Mitchell sponsored HB 1562 into the Illinois legislature back on February 9, hoping to
adopt Year-Round DST – and get this – with an effective date of this summer! That’s right, if his bill
passed and if there was no federal restriction against it, the state of Illinois would remain on Year-Round
DST… forever! Unfortunately, if you’ve followed Time Zone Report at all, you know that the federal
statute that lays out Daylight Saving Time regulations does not permit Year-Round DST as an option.
This bill started out in the House Rules Committee and was assigned to the House Executive Committee
on February 24, and then this week Representative Sue Scherer was added as a co-sponsor.
Michigan’s bill proposes to drop DST, an option which is indeed permitted by federal DST regulations.
Their HB 4342 was filed this past week on March 17 by Representative Jeff Irwin, but this bill has no
specified implementation date. Since this is a new bill, we’ll be watching this closely for activity in the
next week or so.
Central States – From North to South
Now we’ll move over into the central states, from the Dakotas down to Texas.
South Dakota’s HB 1127 was co-sponsored by Representatives Dan Kaiser and Chip Campbell along with
Senator Phil Jensen. Though this bill had some interesting and vague language in it, we learned that the
intent of this bill was to adopt Year-Round DST, even though the title of the bill was “An act to exempt
the state from daylight savings [sic] time”. Regardless of the intent, the bill was killed by the State
Affairs Committee in short order: filed on January 27, killed on February 4.
A couple of bills surfaced in Iowa, but these were editorial revisions and even though they mentioned
DST, nothing in those bills changed the intent or meaning of Iowa DST laws.

4. Down to the cluster of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas,
Kansas SB 282 sponsored by the Senate Ways and Means Committee and filed March 12, 2015, would
stop DST in the state starting in 2017. As another recent bill, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one
over the next week as well.
Just to the east of Kansas, Missouri’s House Joint Resolution 38 sponsored by Representative Kelly to get
voter approval to “switch clocks to daylight saving for the last time and the use of daylight saving time
for public purposes will be eliminated” in March 2017. This measure was filed in early February, but this
last week the House Government Efficiency Committee voted 7 to 4 to make a “Do Pass”
recommendation and referred along to the Select Committee on General Laws. I’ve had a couple of
Email exchanges with Representative Kelley advising him on the restrictions of the federal statute, but
apparently that’s not stopping the “Show Me” state from moving this bill right along.
Just south of Missouri, an Arkansas bill (HB 1947) sponsored by Representative David Meeks was filed
March 9, 2015, with two subsequent amendments (March 13, March 18). The Arkansas bill proposes to
drop DST, and while the bill doesn’t mention a specific implementation date, it does indicate it will do
this when any neighboring state also votes to eliminate DST.
All the way south in our coverage of the Central US to Texas now. There are two bills in Texas, one that
would drop DST later this year, and another that proposes to create the “Texas Task Force on Daylight
Saving Time” which would report findings by December 1, 2016, with an implied notion that the state
legislature would take some action based on that report. Representative Dan Flynn’s bill to go on DST is
officially marked as “left pending in committee”, though Representative James White’s bill to conduct a
study is technically still alive but hasn’t moved out of the initial committee since going there February
12.
Bridging the gap between the Central US and the West Coast, New Mexico has one of the most
interesting pieces of DST legislation. SB 377 sponsored by Senator Cliff Pirtle would request the US
Department of Transportation to move the state from the Mountain Time Zone to the Central Time
Zone, but then continues to say they would call the state’s time “Mountain Daylight Saving Time” from
then on. That bill was introduced back in late January, but this past week that bill was approved by the
New Mexico state Senate! And it’s now over in the New Mexico House of Representatives for
consideration!
Now you understand my side-bar earlier on the federal regulations and the restriction on state requests
to move time zones. In my opinion, the state of New Mexico will be hard pressed to provide the burden
of proof that the Department of Transportation will require. And that means that even if the House
passes this bill and the governor ends up signing it, the request will be denied and all will be for naught.
West Coast States – From Top to Bottom
Over to the western part of the US, where we have seven states to cover. Let’s start with Alaska and
move our way down the Pacific coast and inland.

5. Alaska – SB 6 alive; SB 11, HB 64 dead
First of all, the state of Alaska has had 3 bills, and while two of them have fallen by the wayside, it’s
because one is making great progress in the Alaskan Senate. This bill, sponsored by Senator Anna
MacKinnon, would make 2017 the first year with no DST in the state. An amendment to this bill
provides for Alaska to petition the US Department of Transportation to conduct a study of time zones
across the state as well. So Alaska is continuing to make progress in the form of Senator MacKinnon’s SB
6, and this is one state where I see real potential for successful passage this year.
Washington – HB 1479, SB 5570, HJM 4001 dead
Moving down the Pacific coast, we go to Washington, where there were two bills proposing to drop DST.
Even though there was one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, which normally
bodes well for passage, It seems like these two bills are stuck in committee and will likely die there when
the legislative session ends.
A third bill in Washington was a request to Congress to permit Year-Round DST. I’ve been calling their
HJM 4001 a “model bill”, and recommending it to other states that have indicated a desire to go to Year-
Round DST.
Oregon – SB 99, SB 690 dead
A little farther down the Pacific to the state of Oregon which has two bills that would abolish DST. One
would ask the Oregon voters whether to approve or reject an amendment stopping DST in January 2021
– nearly six years away. There is a clause in this bill that indicates they might make the switch earlier if
California or Washington pass similar legislation. The other bill doesn’t ask the voters to approve, but it
also doesn’t specify an implementation date. None of this matters, since one of the sponsors, Senator
Kim Thatcher, relayed to me in an Email that even though some active discussion is continuing, she’d be
surprised if either of these bills went forward this session.
Idaho – HB 198 dead
East of Oregon and Washington, we’ll go to Idaho, where a short-lived bill in the House of
Representatives proposed to adopt Year-Round DST. HB 198 was introduced by the House Ways and
Means Committee on February 26, and I contacted the Representative Mike Moyle, the originator of
that bill, with information about the federal restrictions, and in less than a week the bill was set aside.
Nevada – AJR 4 active
South of Idaho we’ll go first to the state of Nevada, where Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 4 sponsored
by multiple members of the Nevada legislature (Assemblymen Edwards, Armstrong, and Oscarson; and
Senator Goicoechea) “urges the members of Congress to enact appropriate legislation to give individual
states the option of establishing daylight saving time as the standard time in their respective states
throughout the calendar year”. If this and similar measures from Washington and Alabama were to
pass, Congress would begin to get the message that states want some attention paid to redoing time
zones and Daylight Saving Time.
Side Note…
Another side note here: Daylight Saving Time was first implemented in the US in 1918. It would be nice
if our Congress and the Department of Transportation were to honor the 100 year anniversary by
conducting a study and re-aligning our time zones in 2018. But that would request an act of Congress.

6. Utah – SCR 1, HB 178, HB 247 dead; study bill HJR 26 passed
East of Nevada but still south of Idaho to Utah, which had three bills, one of which would have
eliminated DST, and the other two were attempts to change the state’s Time Zone from Mountain Time
to Central Time. All three of these bills have since been killed. A House Joint Resolution does indicate
that the state will continue to study whether or not to continue with DST, but I wouldn’t expect any
additional legislative activity until the next general legislative session in 2016.
Arizona – HB 2014 dead
Now, a quick note on my home state of Arizona, where we haven’t had DST since 1968. On January 6
Representative Phil Lovas filed a bill to adopt DST in the state. Less than a week later, he withdrew his
bill, saying that public outcry made him re-think the legislation.
Side Note…
My involvement with the Arizona bill the first half of January is what motivated me to get involved
nationally by establishing Time Zone Report!
Eliminate DST
So we’ve covered all of the states that have some form of legislation, but I want to give you a brief list of
states by “type of legislation.”
Those states that have proposed to simply drop DST are the following 8 states:
• Alaska, who seems most likely to actually pass a bill
• Arkansas, whose bill was just filed this past week
• Kansas and Michigan, both of those bills filed about a week ago
• Oregon and Texas, whose bills are probably dead, though there’s still possibility for some of
those bills to be called up
• Utah and Washington, whose bills are definitely dead and beyond any further consideration
Request for Federal Action
Those states that have legislation whose sole intention is to ask for a change to the federal statute to
permit Year-Round DST in the future are the following 3 states:
• Alabama, the most recent addition on March 5, whose bill asks for the change – but not actually
by Congress
• Nevada, whose bill was heard in committee in late February
• Washington, who was the first, and in my opinion, had the best language in their bill

7. Year-Round DST
Those states that have proposed to adopt Year-Round DST, either directly or by changing time zones,
are the following 7 states:
• Florida, whose bill is still active but with no movement since March 3.
• Idaho, Mississippi, and South Dakota, who each had short-lived bills
• Illinois, whose bill has moved out of the original committee and recently had an additional
sponsor jump on board
• New Mexico, who is requesting a Time Zone Change and has passed the Senate, and now in the
House
• Utah, whose bill to change Time Zones sparked some lively debate but was ultimately killed in
committee
Miscellaneous Legislation
And lastly, a few states with miscellaneous bills that don’t actually change their observance of DST:
• Iowa with some editorial clean-up legislation
• Pennsylvania and Massachusetts with proclamations of “Sleep Awareness Week” the week
before the “spring forward” change.
Sign-Off & Social Media
That’s it for this Comprehensive Legislative Summary.
For up-to-date information on new DST-related legislation and status changes, follow us on any of our
social media accounts. Check them out on our web page on the “Social Media” page on the “About Us”
menu.
Sign-Off
That’s it for the Time Zone Report Legislative Summary. I hope this information has been helpful, to
you. You can write me an Email addressed to Podcast@TimeZoneReport.com.
Time Zone Report is a service of GoodClix, Inc., a research and development firm in Phoenix, Arizona
I am Ray Harwood. Thank you for listening!

8. Good-bye!