President-elect Donald Trump on Friday said that Republicans will work together to end the semi-annual changing of the clocks between Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time.
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social page.
Eagle River House Rep. Jamie Allard is all about that. Last year, she filed a bill to end Daylight Savings Time, but could not get it heard in committee. She’s not giving up — this year, she’s preparing to pre-file a similar bill before the end of this month. Although Republicans are in the minority in Alaska’s Legislature, Allard says it’s worth a try.
Arizona and Hawaii already do not observe Daylight Savings Time, having taken advantage of loophole in the federal DST law. Also not switching their clocks back and forth every six months are the territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Trump’s message was echoing the views of his Department of Government Efficiency allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have called the time-switching process inefficient. Others have noted that there are health concerns with going back and forth twice a year — trouble sleeping, trouble waking, fatigue, and even high blood pressure.
Other leaders have attempted to end the practice, most recently Sen. Marco Rubio, who in March introduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“We’re ‘springing forward’ but should have never ‘fallen back,'” Rubio said. “My Sunshine Protection Act would end this stupid practice of changing our clocks back and forth.” Like Allard, he served in a Democrat-dominated Senate and his bill was relegated to the back bench.
While some say that Standard Time should be the permanent time, others want Daylight Savings Time to be the norm. Daylight Savings Time allows for earlier sunrises in the winter, but the evening darkness happens earlier too.
In Alaska, where sunlight changes rapidly much of the year due to its northern location and the orbit of the earth around the sun, the clock change is just one more thing that busy Alaskans have to adjust to.
Great! After DST is killed off, they can kill off the 9/10ths of a cent-per-gallon gasoline ridiculousness.
And then kill off the semi-annual vehicle registration. And then driver license renewal. Heck don’t we already know how to drive ( People from Washington excluded)?
Agreed
Licenses to drive should be for a lifetime. Why “renew” that which doesn’t actually require anything to recertify.
You have it till you do something stupid and lose it. Oh wait…they want $$$$
The money doesn’t even pay the cost of collecting it. Its make work.
Fishing license
Drivers license
Marriage license
DST – time change
The list goes on and on of the absolute grift no one talks about and yet says is normal.
It’s not normal.
Maybe not such a great idea…
That 9/10th of a cent thing is part of the taxes used to fund the Federal Highways agency. They take that and turn it into grants to States and Cities for road construction and rehabilitation.
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Drive on the roads, pay your part.
Of course, the gas station owners would merely round up the 9/10 to a full penny. There probably isn’t anything preventing them from getting rid of 9/10 right now, if they wanted to. Perhaps all it would take would be for a major gasoline retailer to make the first move. BTW, per Wikipedia, federal tax on a gallon is 18.4 cents, Alaska tax is 14.66 cents. Let the government bureaucracies deal in fractions of a penny, we at the consumer level shouldn’t have to. As far as increased cost to the consumer, back in the day, when gasoline sold for 25.9 cents/gallon, a 1/10 cent increase percentage-wise amounted to a 4/10 of 1% increase, a fairly significant increase for the consumer. Today, with gasoline at $3.759 per gallon, a 1/10 cent increase amounts to a 3/100 of 1% increase, virtually unnoticeable to the consumer. Granted, the 9/10 issue is a minor irritant. A minor irritant that requires a very minor fix …
Interesting. I did not check it, but I was sure (apparently incorrectly) the 9/10 of a cent was part of the Federal Highways tax.
My point remains valid though. We all use the roads, we need to pay for the upkeep, and restoration. I get something out of that tax, and I am OK with paying it.
DST is just another dumb government idea, and people resist eliminating it for dumb reasons. It didn’t even make sense when it was first instituted a 100 years ago.
Yes, we are a 24 seven world so it doesn’t matter what time of the day it is business goes on. Get rid of daylight savings. It’s an inconvenience and not necessary.
Almost nobody resists getting rid of it accept politicians.
The original reasons included saving electricity when there wasn’t enough to go around. There is no excuse for it now at all. Good riddance!
Book it!
I have no issue with abolishing daylight savings time, as long as it is a nationwide. Otherwise it’s just another impediment to business with the east coast.
No, have you heard of the internet?
Silly Sapper1, you can order from the east coast on the internet, you can reach customer service, but occasionally you need to hammer out real terms with a breathing body in charge, and able to make decisions during business hours.
YES!!!
No daylight savings times…period.
There are people who want to make daylight savings time permanent. No.
Make standard time permanent. The sun should be at high noon at noon time. Otherwise it’s just more government trying to alter reality.
100 percent.
Negative. Make daylight savings time permanent.
Why.
Please let us know the bill number when assigned so we can tell our legislators we want this done!
Look at the state legislature website. Every bill and it’s status is listed.
How about stay on Daylight Saving Time. Keep the sun up extra hour. I see and experience all those health problems every time I fly/drive into a new Time zone. I was Jamie Allard constituent I would fire her wasting her time with this time change crusade. It BS that there is health problems associated with time change. People fly/drive through time zone the health problems doesn’t happen if it does it was going to happen anyway without the change. Do something constructive Jamie Allard do something meaningful for Alaska that will make Alaska Great Again. Time change doesn’t help Alaska put food on the table and gas in the car.
How about no.
Wow… so much uninformed in such a short comment.
The extra hour? Where did that come from? Oh… that’s right, it does not exist.
And the travelling through time zones, if the entire planet went to Greenwich Mean Time (Zulu time), the effects would still be there. The time on your watch is meaningless.
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But, you do you…
The time change is a freaking annoying remnant of the progressive fascist era.
It’s not a waste of time to get rid of it. What is a waste of time is resetting the clocks twice a year.
To be right and proper, a time zone should be a 1/24th segment of the planet. The time for that zone should be determined as when the sun reaches precisely high noon at the center of that zone. The time in any zone is calculated in relation the 1st zone, Greenwich. When the sun is high noon in the Greenwich zone it will be 11am in the 2nd zone to the East, 10am in the 3rd zone and so on. If you want more daylight in your life, either get up earlier or go to bed later. Leave the time settings alone.
About time. Allow me to paraphrase the American Indian saying that only a western European would claim you could cut the top off a blanket, sew it onto the bottom, and end up with a longer blanket.
DST is the dumbest idea to ever come along. Either spring forward 30 minutes or fall 30 depending what mode we’re when it passes and leave it alone forever.
OMG! I am SO over the continual seasonal changing of the clocks. I hated it when I was a kid, and even more now. We should have done away with it years ago here in Alaska but too much money was spent brainwashing the masses that it would somehow be bad.
Thank Goodness The Trumpmeister will get rid of it for our betterment.
YAY!!!!
Keep DST. I always look forward to springing ahead and falling back. If one hour of sleep affects you so much you’ve got other health issues you need to address. People travel over multiple time zones and don’t have problems. Alaska has many more pressing problems we need to tackle.
It has been demonstrated many times that DST provides no actual benefit, and actually has drawbacks.
So, why keep it? Because one night a year you can “sleep” and extra hour? Like suddenly you go from doing eight hours of sleep a night, and BOOM! fall back and you are out like a light for nine hours? Not happening. The only people who benefit are the drunks that are trying to “close the bar.” and they can drink an extra hour.
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Oh, and they are angry in the spring when the lose an hour of drinking.
If you want to do that no one is stopping you. The rest of us would like to NOT be forced to participate in a totally useless exercise in ridiculousness.
ago
Only the white man thinks you can cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it onto the bottom and think that they have a longer blanket.
My vote is eliminating the falling back in the fall. 👍
I’m white but I don’t think the way you say every man of my race does. You have revealed your racial prejudice–a moral deficiency.
“Daylight Savings Time allows for earlier sunrises in the winter, but the evening darkness happens earlier too.” It’s actually the exact opposite! We are on standard time now.
Would like to get back to 4 time zones in Alaska as in pre 1984 to follow solar time more closely
I agree with you Frank. The basically one artificial time zone makes no sense to me either. Then the next move is to finally move the capitol (or if not that, at least the legislature and all government offices) permanently out of Southeast and put it on the road system into a more central time zone!
Of all the critical issues, this is an “existential threat” to our republic, and it commands attention. Spare nothing, Mr. President: set our times aright!
Remember that southcentral already is on permanent Daylight Time, when we consolidated our 4 time zones into two, back in 1982. It used to be 2 hours difference between the Railbelt and the state capital. By moving our clocks ahead an hour to become the new “standard” time, and Juneau moving theirs BACK permanently, one of the biggest complaints about Juneau being the capital evaporated.
This is the way. Politicians have jibber-jabbered about abolishing Daylight Savings Time for decades. And just about as it would seem they would toss it into the garbage can of now-unnecessary ideas, they would jerk the football away just like Lucy Van Pelt and laugh at the gullibility of citizens who want less of this in our lives. Good on Allard. Good on Trump.
After reading all the comments it seems the reason for the switching back and forth s**tshow is to please half the people half the time of the year because no one can agree on which half of the day they want more light.
Sounds like a solution to preschool age children as a tool to teach them how to share when they cant seem to agree. Everybody screaming for more ice cream.
So switcharoo it is.
Twice a year.
Leave it to the governmental control to “solve” sheeple’s problems.
I favor permanent national Daylight Savings Time – on top of that 1982 time zone adjustment.
Jamie Allard has shown incredible courage and is engaged! She calls things as she sees it with integrity. Alaskans need to keep a close eye on those we send to Juneau. Let’s watch her work and support her efforts! She fought hard last year and brings the kind of common-sense approach our state needs. Thank you, Rep. Allard!
All of the west coast states will have permanent DST once Congress lets us choose which we want. If we stay with standard time we’ll always be two hours behind the west coast and five hours behind the east coast. It just makes more sense to go with permanent DST. Besides, I’d rather have the extra hour of daylight during summer than have the sun rise an hour earlier in winter.
Keep it or leave it. I dont care. But it is interesting that it’s the very low intellect politicians, like Allard and trump who rail and tear their hair over DST. Those who joined them act as though they have never traveled outside of their home time zone. How many heart attacks and strokes occur when people fly to Seattle, or Phoenix?
So do you like being able to do things outdoors in the summer after work?? Eliminate DST and you have one less hour of light. Brilliant! Instead keep the DST all year. It would seem that in the land of darkness having something that aligns the light times with when most people are awake would be a good thing.
DST is annoying.. get rid of it. Statically people get into more car wrecks after time change.. logically makes more sense to stop messin with the time.
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