Setting our clocks back an hour on Sunday will bring an end to daylight-saving time for 2006 and come as a relief to those who prefer standard time, when our mornings are lighter.
Starting next year, by an act of Congress, daylight-saving time will be extended by four weeks. Instead of setting our clocks forward the first Sunday of April, we’ll do so three weeks earlier. And rather than fall back the last Sunday in October, we’ll hold off until the first Sunday of November.
The nation has been debating daylight-saving time since World War I when it was first implemented in an effort to conserve fuel. It didn’t. Business interests such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pushed it after realizing that evening light gave people an incentive to shop after work. Decades later, it remains a source of fascination and confusion. With less than two weeks before the election, we asked gubernatorial candidates Bill Ritter and Bob Beauprez to weigh in on the subject.
Ritter grew up on a farm east of Denver and Beauprez on a dairy farm west of Lafayette. The two are locked in a heated battle, debating hot-button issues from illegal immigration to affordable health care and the economy. Both campaigns seemed amused – and relieved – to address the matter. “We don’t need an FBI investigation to know that daylight savings time is good for Colorado,” Ritter said. Spokesman Evan Dreyer offered: “Bill invites Congressman Beauprez to set aside differences…and unite over daylight and savings.”
John Marshall, spokesman for Beauprez, said: “The congressman supports daylight. As a former dairyman, he understands that working Colorado families need more daylight. … As to savings, he supports that too. He began saving as a young man and continues the practice to this day.” Marshall noted that Ritter had been “suspiciously silent” on the issue, and concluded: “Bill Ritter. No record on daylight. Can’t trust him with savings.”
Congress’ reason for extending daylight saving was to save energy. On standard time we apparently use more gas and electricity by switching on the lights earlier and, on cold days, pumping up the heat when we awake. Opponents of the extension say it increases the number of mornings that school children have to stand at their bus stops in the dark.
Today the sun will rise at 7:22 a.m. and set at 6:05 p.m. In two days, we’ll experience that brief psychological jolt that comes with an earlier dawn. Oh happy day.
