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Mar

11

On DST: Stop banging your head against the bedpost & go play golf


For those of you banging your head against your bedposts over daylight savings time, just a reminder of what I learned two years ago: George Bush and the GOP Congress didn’t bother beating back chambers of commerce that supported the change and benefits the industries that lobbied them hard – industries like golf and outdoor entertainment (think barbecues).

You can read more about it in these sources:

The Reasonsing behind Changing Daylight Savings Time – has an audio interview with author and professor Michael Downing who wrote a book about DST and also includes a great timeline w/explanations like this one:

2005: Congress passes the Energy Act of 2005 which starts daylight-saving time one month earlier in the spring and extends it one week later in the fall, beginning in 2007.

That would be before the 2006 elections, when Democrats gained a majority.

I wrote about the bain of DST twice and both times pointed out that it has been Chambers of Commerce that have wanted it – in 2007, the change was a result of the, I kid you not, BBQ and golf industries who wanted more time for people to enjoy those activities and thus generate more sales and fees.

From The National Review, The Unhappy Hour (from 2005):

As Michael Downing points out in his new book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States.

Likewise, Downing laments here too:

Downing of Tufts said there’s never been any conclusive evidence that daylight-saving time does anything but shuffle the god-given hours of the day around. If anything, he said, it encourages Americans to drive around more in the well-lit late afternoons and evenings to shop. This does not save energy.

Downing said the two industries he’s found to benefit most from the time change are the golf industry — more light to grab that extra round — and the barbecue business — the more daylight, the more ribs on the grill.

“I’m not sure how that applies to New England,” he said. “There’s not a lot of people playing golf here in March.”

Weapons of Mass Discussion wants to persuade Ohio legislators to do something.  I don’t know what state legislatures can do – doesn’t Indiana have that funky thing where they are different from the rest of us I think.

I sure can’t understand how government regulation over the hours of the day represents anything that proponents of small and limited government, which I thought conservatives preferred, not to mention the free market idea thing, would allow themselves to be persuaded to support.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:19 pm March 11th, 2009 in Business, Energy, George Bush, Government, Illness, Politics, Social Issues, Statehouse 

Comments

One Response to “On DST: Stop banging your head against the bedpost & go play golf”

  1. 1 Foraker on March 16th, 2009 1:34 pm

    Why do we still subject ourselves to this minor jetlag every year? Let’s just stay on “daylight savings” time year-round.

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