It is time for Boulder City, and the rest of Clark County, to secede.
Not from the state of Nevada, but from the Pacific Time Zone.
Once again, after only 18 weeks of standard time, we “spring forward” on March 14 to daylight saving time.
If some of my rantings sound familiar, it’s because I advocated for the same thing two years ago. I won’t repeat everything, but I’ll hit the highlights.
Our allies to the north, the Canadians, were the first to launch a daylight saving zone. The few hundred citizens of Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) set their clocks forward July 1, 1908.
To minimize the cost of fuel for artificial lighting during World War I, Germany and Austria became the first countries to utilize daylight saving time in 1916.
The United States followed suit in 1918 by instituting “fast time” and moved our clocks forward an hour. This practice lasted seven months before being discontinued.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted daylight saving time nationwide Feb. 9, 1942, to help with the war effort. Our time zones were labeled Eastern War Time, Central War Time, Mountain War Time and Pacific War Time. All time zones were relabeled Peace Time after the Japanese surrendered in mid-August 1945. All daylight saving time was discontinued Sept. 30, 1945.
Afterward, daylight saving time changes were haphazard and sometimes confusing.
There were no uniform rules for daylight saving time until the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was enacted by Congress. This law allowed states to opt out of daylight saving time, which began the last Sunday of April and ended the last Sunday in October — a six-month cycle.
Congress attempted to save energy costs by mandating daylight saving time nationwide in January 1974 because of the Arab oil embargo. Public outcry and paltry energy savings resulted in this law being lifted 16 months later.
One of the main arguments for daylight saving time is that it adds an extra hour of daylight during the winter, when daylight hours are fewer. It doesn’t give us any extra daylight, of course; it merely facilitates a later sunrise and sunset. However, we return to standard time more than five weeks before we experience the fewest daylight hours on the winter solstice, which falls on Dec. 21 this year.
Today, 32 states have submitted legislation to stay on DST. Eight of those states are ahead of the game and have passed bills to stop the clock-changing insanity.
Southern Nevada is longitudinally eastward enough to join the Mountain Time zone. We should do this and stay on daylight saving time, facilitating year-round Mountain Daylight Time, or remain on Pacific Standard Time.
Do our elected officials have time for us (pun intended) or are they stuck inside their own bubble within their own time zone?
It seems as though our state representatives in Carson City are in their own time zone and in their own sphere of reality. I doubt if anything will be done this legislative session. Our state officials seem to have more important issues such as lifting term limits and accommodating the criminal element. After all, time is money and there is no DST political action committee.
Nevertheless, the power to establish DST permanency ultimately rests with Congress. However, they have more important things to do, such as impeaching a previous president and punishing (former President Donald) Trump supporters.
I encourage everyone to call or write their elected representatives, but I doubt they’ll give us the time of day.
The opinions expressed above belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of the Boulder City Review. They have been edited solely for grammar, spelling and style, and have not been checked for accuracy of the viewpoints.
Dan Jennings is a retired Army captain and a retired BCPD lieutenant. He can be reached at bcpd267@cox.net.