Daylight Saving Time is a sticky subject in Amy Clipper’s home.
As the owner of 70 & Sunny Coffee on the Seattle Waterfront, she relies on the early risers. As the U.S. Congress debates eliminating time changes, she finds herself torn.
Make no mistake, the idea of the time change going away for good does sound attractive to the young mother.
“I also have a four-year-old, so that time change is really terrible, Clipper said. “It’s just a week of chaos. Trying to adjust a bedtime and a wake-up time for all of us is tough.”
The U.S House voted Tuesday to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
For Seattle, that means the typical summer sunrise time of 5:20 a.m. And sunset of 9:10 p.m. on the solstice. In the winter, though, it means an 8:55 a.m. sunrise, pushing sunset back to 5:20 p.m. instead of 4:20 p.m.
“I have a coffee shop, and I would love people to get out earlier, so I’d love an earlier sunrise for that reason,” Clipper said. “But I also love a later sunset, especially in the winter, because it’s depressing to get off work and it’s dark out.”
Sleep experts, like Dr. Vishesh Kapur of the University of Washington Sleep Center at Harborview Medical Center, says the U.S House of Representatives passed the wrong time change—saying permanent standard time is healthier for the body.
“If you’re in the center of a time zone on standard time, the sun is directly over your head at that point. So in some ways, it’s natural time,” Kapur said.
Permanent Standard Time would end Seattle’s 9 p.m. summer sunsets, pushing the latest ahead of 8:10 p.m. And a summer sunrise of 4:20 a.m. Winter would be where Kapur says the benefit is, with a more natural sunrise of 7:55 a.m.
“When you got to the winter and you had to wake up in darkness, it’s a very unpleasant feeling,” Kapur said.
The United States tried to switch to permanent Daylight Saving Time for two years in 1974 to increase daylight during the workday amid the energy crisis of that era. It didn’t even make it through the next winter before Congress repealed it.
“There were also issues with the safety of students waiting at bus stops in the dark and things like that,” Kapur said. “Prolonged periods with Daylight Saving Time throughout the year have never occurred because it feels really bad, and it feels bad especially if you’re living in northern areas like, you know, Washington State and Seattle.”
The bill that the U.S House passed is headed to the U.S Senate. It’s sponsored by Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, who says President Donald Trump has said he would sign it.