Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara is pushing to pass legislation he introduced in the State Assembly that would make daylight saving time a permanent in New York State (A.6443). The legislation would establish daylight saving time as the year-round standard of time in New York in partnership with Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and pushes for repeal of the 1966 federal law. Nineteen other states have already enacted similar legislation supporting a permanent Daylight Standard Time citing economic benefits, Santabarbara noted.

The U.S.had daylight saving time as early as 1918, with the current federal policy – the Uniform Time Act - being enacted in 1966, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. As a result, most Americans move their clocks ahead by an hour in the warmer months so that it gets dark later and move their clocks back an hour in the fall. All states except for Hawaii and Arizona, as well as several U.S. territories, follow daylight saving time.

“For more than a century, Americans have changed their clocks twice a year, a practice that has proved to have negative impacts in our community,” Santabarbara said. “When clocks move forward in the spring and move back in the fall studies have shown that the transition has a negative effect on sleep, productivity, concentration, and general well-being,. While daylight saving time has been reported to save energy by having Americans turn on their lights later at night, studies have shown relatively little is actually saved during this period of time especially when we compare the costly effects onourhealthand the economy during this transition.Recent estimates show millions of dollarsarelosteach year due to decreases in workplace productivity.