Maine and Massachusetts Want to Ditch Daylight Saving Time for Good
Some New Englanders are sick of watching the sun set before dinnertime.
State legislators in Maine and Massachusetts are considering motions to leave the Eastern Time Zone and join Atlantic Time, a zone used by Canada's eastern provinces and Puerto Rico, NBC News reports. The move would mean the states would not "fall back" (or set their clocks back one hour) like the rest of the East Coast on Nov. 5, but would remain on daylight saving time (DST)-effectively ending their DST observance or running on "all-year daylight-saving time," as NBC calls it.
On the shortest day of the year, the sun sets at 4:11 p.m. in Boston and 4:04 p.m. in Portland, Maine. Adopting Atlantic time would give residents an additional hour of sunlight.
The change could have widespread health and economic benefits, argues public health advocate Tom Emswiler, whose 2014 Boston Globe op-ed cited a New England Journal of Medicine study showing an increase in heart attacks each year following the "spring forward" start of DST.
Emswiler is now part of the Massachusetts panel looking into the potential switch to Atlantic time. The commission's second report on the matter will be up for a vote on Nov.1, then it could go before legislators, a spokesman for the Democratic state senator overseeing the review, Eileen Donoghue, told NBC News.
A similar bill passed in Maine earlier this year, but the Senate stipulated that residents must vote on the change in a referendum that "could only be triggered by neighboring Massachusetts and New Hampshire changing their time, too," according to Quartz. The Massachusetts commission also warned that its state cannot act independently, or it would risk interfering with region-wide "commerce, trade, interstate transportation and broadcasting."
(h/t Travel + Leisure)
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