You’ll soon lose sleep due to daylight saving. Has Kentucky tried to change the practice?
Daylight saving time will start at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 12, when Kentucky residents should “spring forward” and move their clocks ahead one hour.
The new season officially begins Monday, March 20, and Lexington area residents can expect spring showers and some clouds in the coming days.
But will Kentucky put an end to the tradition of changing clocks twice a year? Here’s what to know.
Daylight saving legislation in Kentucky, nationwide
Kentucky lawmakers prefiled a bill in 2019 aiming to establish year-round daylight saving time in the Bluegrass State if allowed by the U.S. Congress, but the bill never moved. States do not currently have the authority to choose permanent daylight saving time.
Although the U.S. Senate approved a bill last year to make daylight saving time the year-round standard across the nation, the measure has yet to pass the bicameral legislature.
So far, Hawaii and Arizona are the only states in the country that don’t observe daylight saving time, and the Navajo Nation portion of Arizona does practice daylight saving.
History of daylight saving
The original daylight saving law passed the U.S. Congress in 1918, and state governments were left with the decision to keep or scrap it after World War I, CNBC reports.
The Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966 and requires state governments that choose to observe daylight saving to begin and end the practice on federally determined dates.
“Under the Uniform Time Act, States may choose to exempt themselves from observing Daylight Saving Time by State law,” the U.S. Department of Transportation website reads. “States do not have the authority to choose to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time.”
This year’s daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 5.
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