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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

To summarize all the invitble comments:

"I hate the time shift, just pick one!" (Almost no one likes the time shift, about 90% of people want us to just stay with one. The problem is, 50% of those people want standard time year round and 50% want daylight time)

"California and Florida already voted to stay on Daylight time year round, why don't they?" (Because congress has to pass a law to let them, states can only choose to stay on standard time year round)

"Daylight time year round causes health problems" (There is some weakly supported evidence that this is true, that the human body really wants noon to be at solar noon)

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> Because congress has to pass a law to let them, states can only choose to stay on standard time year round

Does Congress actually have the power to stop a state adopting whatever time zone it wants?

15 USC 260a(b) expressly supersedes state laws specifying different changeover dates for daylight savings time, and 260a(c) authorizes the Department of Transportation to apply for a federal court injunction against violations of that section.

But, 15 USC 260a doesn't govern what standard time zone applies to each state. That is governed by 15 USC 261 thru 265. However, unlike section 260a, sections 261 thru 265 don't contain any provision analogous to 260a(c), authorizing USDOT to apply for a federal court injunction to enforce it. One might argue that means injunctive relief isn't available for 261 thru 265, hence rendering 261 thru 265 effectively unenforceable. One might also argue that the absence of any provision analogous to 260a(b), expressly superseding state laws, means 261 thru 265 don't supersede state laws, unlike 260a. Of course, we'd have to wait and see what the federal courts make of such an argument, if they ever get presented with it.

Furthermore, 15 USC 261(a) grants the Secretary of Transportation the authority to specify the boundaries between time zones. This means the Secretary of Transportation could potentially move a state to an adjacent time zone without needing any Congressional approval.

Finally, 15 USC 260a(c) grants the Secretary of Transportation the power to apply for a court injunction of enforcement – which could be read as implying only the Secretary of Transportation has this power - meaning if the Secretary of Transportation chose to "turn a blind eye" to a violation, nobody else would have the legal power to do anything about it.

I am not a lawyer, so I must rely on people who are to tell me these things. And they have told me that a state can legally choose which to remain on standard time year round, but they cannot choose which time zone they are in nor can they choose to remain on daylight time year round.

So perhaps you are missing some other laws that govern this? Or perhaps it's a declaration from the Secretary of Transportation that has never been changed?

I think it comes down to legal risk appetite.

If you go by what the law says on its face – yes, you need either approval from Congress or the Secretary, and probably the Secretary has made clear they are unlikely to agree to use whatever powers they technically have in this area.

If you start coming up with inventive legal arguments – then it comes down to whether you can convince the courts to accept them. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But obviously this is a much more legally risky strategy.

Although, at least in this case, it is unlikely that anyone will go to prison if the courts don't like their inventive legal argument. Still, it would require state officials to risk being ruled against by federal court, and some of them might not view the political consequences of that as acceptable.

> "Daylight time year round causes health problems" (There is some weakly supported evidence that this is true, that the human body really wants noon to be at solar noon)

Every single association for sleep research and chronobiology that has put out a position paper on the topic has said that standard ("winter") time year-round is best for human health:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30691237

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30691158

It’s been some time, but I testified in support of a bill on this in Oregon. My understanding at the time (2018?) was that California passed a ballot measure to force the legislature to consider it, but then the legislature let it die in committee. Oregon and Washington passed their bills, but they were contingent on California passing theirs too since no one wanted the I-5 corridor to pass through different time zones.

Yes you are technically correct, the best kind of correct. California passed a ballot measure that allowed the Legislature to take up the issue, but only if the issue would be legal federally. Since the Federal congress hasn't made it legal, they haven't taken up the issue.

The past two years they have tried to take up the opposite -- going to permanent standard time, in association with WA, OR, NV, and ID, so that most of the West would be on the same time zone year round. But that hasn't gotten out of committee.

> "I hate the time shift, just pick one!" (Almost no one likes the time shift, about 90% of people want us to just stay with one. The problem is, 50% of those people want standard time year round and 50% want daylight time)

Time zone preference is only a problem for the people not saying "just pick one". If 90% of people say "just pick one" then we could flip a coin (or commission a study).

The people who don't care about the time shift don't care about the time zone either. They are happy with or at least indifferent to the time changes.

The people saying "just pick one" usually care deeply about which one is picked. We've already done surveys and studies. 45% of the people really want to be on standard time year round, 45% of the people want to be on daylight time year round. The rest don't care.

So we keep the status quo because we can't agree on what to change it to.

so pick 30 minutes as the permanent offset

> 90% of people want us to just stay with one.

> 45% of the people really want to be on standard time year round, 45% of the people want to be on daylight time year round. The rest don't care.

So you think the people that want the swapping to end above all else are a rounding error? I don't. I think it's a significant group of people.

Also it would only take a few of them to break a deadlock.

For example, let's say 42% of voters want standard, 42% want summer, 6% want either, and 10% don't care very much. Of that last 10%, let's pessimistically say that 2/3 will vote against any change and 1/3 will vote yes.

If you put up a vote to end daylight savings in either direction, 42% + 6% + 3.3% vote yes, and 42% + 6.7% vote no. It passes.

> So you think the people that want the swapping to end above all else are a rounding error?

No, they are the 90%.

"Above all else" means they will support permanent summer time and they will support permanent standard time.

When you said the 90% "care deeply about which one is picked", I thought you were saying they cared about that more than the end of daylight savings. If you're not saying that, and they care about it less than the end of daylight savings, then it doesn't matter that they "care deeply about which one is picked". They'll still support ending it in either direction. Do a poll for either option, show 90% support, do it.

When polling is done asking about just one optoin, about 60% support going to permanent standard time instead of switching, and 60% support going to permanent daylight time instead of switching.

So there is a non-trivial number who support just stopping the switch and going to either time zone, but it's not a majority for either option.

So we're back to where we were -- almost everyone wants to stop switching, but there is not any agreement as to which way to stay. Both non-switching options have equal support.

1. If only 60% support either one, then a lot less than 90% want to end switching above all else.

2. If an option has 60% support then just do it already, that's plenty of support.

3. Gallup says that twice as many people want standard time all year as want summer time all year.

So go to standard time and let culture shift? Hard to coordinate admittedly, your boss and your kids schools both have to say 8 is the new 9…

You sure about noon mattering? I thought the evidence was that it is when sunrise happens that matters.

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