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‘More sun means more fun’: Markey makes another pitch for permanent DST
“We need to make sure that the hour of sunlight, of daylight, is in the evening so people’s mouths can be turned upwards in a smile,” Markey said in a recent video.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey is renewing his push for brighter days ahead — literally.
As most Americans set their clocks back an hour Sunday, Markey took the opportunity to call for year-round daylight saving time and lamented the oncoming gloomy winter darkness.
“I’m here in Lowell, it’s 3:34 in the afternoon, and the sun is shining,” Markey said in a video posted to social media Thursday. “But a week from now when daylight saving time ends, the sun is going to begin to set at this time. We need year-round daylight saving time.”
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He added: “We need to make sure that the hour of sunlight, of daylight, is in the evening so people’s mouths can be turned upwards in a smile and they can keep that daylight that just makes them feel so much better than having it earlier and earlier in the morning.”
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Together with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Markey is the co-sponsor of the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent and put an end to the twice-yearly process of changing the clocks. The bill unanimously passed in the Senate in 2022, only to die in the House. The latest iteration of the bill remains in limbo.
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Markey has long been a vocal proponent of daylight saving time, twice working to extend its duration during his tenure as a U.S. representative, his office noted in a press release.
“This head-spinning ritual of falling back and springing forward has gone on long enough,” Markey said in a statement. “It isn’t just a nuisance — changing our clocks also has a very real impact on our economy, our health, and our happiness. More sun means more fun, so let’s pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make for brighter days year-round.”
Research suggests switching back and forth between daylight saving time and standard time can have far-reaching consequences. For example, a 2017 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Epidemiology suggested the fall transition from DST to standard time is associated with an increase in depressive episodes.
“Distress associated with the sudden advancement of sunset, marking the coming of a long period of short days, may explain this finding,” the researchers concluded.
On the flip side, researchers at University of Oregon found the spring adjustment to daylight saving time can impact worker productivity for up to two weeks, and early-morning productivity picks up in the fall when DST ends. Another study from researchers at University of Colorado Boulder found that fatal car accidents in the U.S. spike by 6% in the workweek following the spring switch.
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“Most people enjoy the extra hour of sleep they get when daylight saving time ends, especially because we tend to delay sleep on weekends and the ability to sleep in on Monday morning benefits us,” Dr. Raghu Upender, medical director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Disorders Center, said in a Vanderbilt University Medical Center article last month. “However, because it gets darker sooner in the evening, some people may experience more fatigue on their commute home.”
According to the article, Upender advised light exposure in the mornings as a way of resetting the internal clock.
“It doesn’t have to be direct sunlight,” he said. “Open the curtains and turn on all the bright lights in your house, or get outside for a walk.”
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