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Aren't the boundaries of time zones federally defined? Does this bill change that? My understanding previously was that the only choice states had was between summer DST and year-round standard time. Otherwise California could have switched to year-round Mountain Standard Time instead of lobbying Congress for year-round Pacific Saving Time.

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I think states haven’t switched to year round times (except Arizona) because it’s weirdly better to be in sync with the changes.

New England has a compact to move ahead one time zone and abolish the clock changes, moving from Eastern to Atlantic zone, if all the states agree. That’s basically identical to year round DST. But if the rest of the Northeast stayed on Eastern with clock changes, New England would have a different time zone for 4 months out of the year, which is kind of weird and awkward. It’d be easier if Boston and New York were either in the same time zone, or 1 hour apart, but being different sometimes sounds like a mess.

Maybe California wanted to avoid that.

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