When clocks fall back this weekend for daylight saving time

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- While clocks are turning back an hour this weekend, advocates say Ohio should abandon daylight saving time and observe standard time permanently.

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, closing the annual period when U.S. clocks "spring forward" an hour in March and "fall back" in November. Yes, this means we get an extra hour of sleep when the clock remains in the secondhand position for another hour.

Jay Pea, president of the nonprofit Save Standard Time, advocates for extending standard time to the entire year and testified at the Ohio Statehouse last fall against a bipartisan resolution passed by the House of Representatives that urges the U.S. Congress to pass the "Sunshine Protection Act," a bill to transition to perpetual daylight saving nationwide.

"Permanent standard time would protect start times for schoolchildren and essential workers by letting most sleep naturally past dawn year-round. Its benefits to circadian health would improve immunity, longevity, mood, alertness, and performance in school, sports, and work," Pea said. "Standard time is the natural clock, set to the sun."

Any effort to enact daylight saving in Ohio would be curtailed until federal law changes. Under the Uniform Time Act of 1966, states can change to standard time but not daylight saving, which requires a change to federal law to transition to perpetual daylight saving.

Passing the Sunshine Protection Act would mean later sunsets in the winter but also later sunrises. For example, the sun rises around 7:15 a.m. and sets around 4:30 p.m. on the first day of winter in New York. The Sunshine Protection Act would change sunrise to 8:15 a.m. and sunset to 5:30 p.m. This weekend, the sun will set in Ohio at 6:28 p.m. on Saturday, then set at 5:27 p.m. on Sunday.

Michael Garrahan, a Save Standard Time board member, also submitted testimony against the Ohio House's resolution and argued permanent daylight saving would be harmful to the health and safety of residents. Garrahan said darker winter mornings would have an adverse effect of students unless schools alter their schedules.

"Rather than impose this burden on school districts just to maintain their present level of safety, health, and academic performance, it would be better to keep standard time so that a schedule change can improve conditions," Garrahan said.

The Ohio Statehouse's measure is now under consideration in the Senate, where it received a hearing in the General Government Committee in June. Reps. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and Bob Peterson (R-Sabina), the bill's primary sponsors, argued the U.S. no longer needs the biannual tradition of changing clocks, pointing to studies that say moving clocks in the spring and fall causes a number of work, school, safety and sleep-related issues.

"Continuing to change the time results in a higher number of cardiac issues and strokes and prolonged seasonal depression," Creech said. "A recent study revealed that sleep loss, even for as little as one hour, can decrease a child's quality of life, showing significant negative impacts on the children’s physical well-being as well as their ability to cope with the school environment."