ALBANY, N.Y. — We are currently on daylight saving time, which ends this weekend. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, we fall back an hour and go back to standard time.
Not everyone likes the idea of switching over to standard time because it gets dark earlier at night. It's why a state senator just outside of Utica wants to make daylight saving time year-round in New York State.
Sen. Joseph Griffo (R-47th District) says making daylight saving time permanent would help reduce crime, reduce the number of accidents on the road and improve the public's health.
Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara (D-111th District) is also sponsoring the bill in the state Assembly.
However, this is even going beyond New York State.
Griffo is speaking to provinces in Canada nearby and surrounding states to get everyone on the same page.
"That would allow us to force both federal governments to allow the potential for this type of consideration where we can go to a uniform time across the country but it would be in both nations. It would be based on daylight saving time," Griffo said.
"We already have different time zones. We don't want to exacerbate that by having different time sets like standard or daylight saving time in all different states. So obviously there's going to have to be some sort of role for the federal government here."
That's because the federal government only allows states to withdraw from daylight saving time, not standard time.
Meanwhile, local Assemblyman Angelo Morinello is proposing a bill to do the opposite and keep standard time over daylight saving time.
His office sent 2 On Your Side this statement:
“When you look at the health effects, it’s clear that daylight savings cause more problems for state residents than benefits,” said Morinello. “Each time we face a time shift, I have constituents reaching out to me asking to eliminate daylight saving time. Americans lose approximately 40 minutes of sleep on the night after the shift, which results in loss of productivity that can cost the economy up to $434 million a year. In addition, daylight saving time can significantly impact those who take scheduled medicines, as well as cause an increase in heart-related issues and workplace and automobile accidents. The benefits simply do not outweigh the risks.”
It could be a while before the issue over using daylight saving time is resolved though.
Griffo says while it is important, it's not the highest priority in the legislature right now given all the pandemic-related issues they are trying to solve.