It's time to "spring forward" once again at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 8. It could, theoretically, be the last time clocks change for Washington state, if Congress passes a bill recognizing permanent DST. But it's unknown if such a bill will come forward.
Why did Washington make the move to go to permanent DST? Keep clicking to see why changing times is terrible, according to science...
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In 2019, the state legislature passed a bill to allow Washington to remain permanently on daylight saving time.
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Yet a few months later, we "fell back." Now, it's time to "spring forward" again at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 14. But it (theoretically) could be for the last time, depending on what happens at the federal level between now and November.
The problem is, staying permanently on daylight saving time (the "sprung forward" time) has not yet been recognized by the federal government. The states that currently do not recognize DST, Hawaii and most of Arizona, are allowed to do so because they remain on standard time, which is allowed under federal law.
And with the past year being devoted to the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of daylight saving time has fallen off the radar.
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In 2019, House Bill 1196 passed both the Washington state House and Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee on May 8, 2019. Now, Congress needs to approve a state's ability to remain permanently on DST for Washington and seven other states that have passed similar legislation to be able to do so.
Oregon and California are among those seven other states, meaning it would be a shift for the entire West Coast if approved by Congress. DST currently lasts from March to November, meaning it already makes up eight months of the year.
It's not yet known when Congress may consider such a law to allow for permanent DST. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) put forward the Sunshine Protection Act in 2019 that would have forced all states to remain on DST, but it fizzled and has not yet been reintroduced. Florida is another state that has passed a bill to enact permanent daylight saving time across the country.
There are many reasons for the decision to flip permanently. It had been discussed several times in the recent past, including bills proposed in 2017 and 2015.
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The reasons are simple, and obvious to anyone who wakes up the days immediately following a time change: When the clock changes, humans have a hard time adapting, which can cause stress.
"When we spring forward, the clocks on the wall advance, but our body clocks do not change so readily," University of Oregon organizational psychologist David Wagner wrote in a 2018 opinion piece. "It generally takes a few days for us to adapt to the time change in a way that allows us to fall asleep at our typical time. The upshot is that Americans sleep approximately 40 minutes less than usual on the Sunday to Monday night following the switch."
Meanwhile, while we wait for Congress to allow the change to permanent DST, Washingtonians should set their clocks forward one hour starting at 2 a.m. on Sunday.
