“Fall back” is almost here.
But not quite.
Daylight saving time, which begins on the second Sunday in March each year will end on the first Sunday of November.
In 2023, that means the clocks change on Sunday, Nov. 5, at 2 a.m. That marks the start of standard time — which will actually be 1 a.m. once the adjustment is made.
Daylight saving time will resume on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at 2 a.m., when clocks will be set forward an hour.
In the early 2000s, the switch would have happened this coming weekend. At that time, standard time stetched from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April — a week earlier in the fall and between three and four weeks later in the spring.
That changed with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. A provision in that law authored by U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., then a U.S. Representative, enacted the extension of daylight saving time.
Markey partnered with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., to write the provision, which amended the Uniform Time Act of 1996 to increase daylight saving time and reduce standard time.
The new dates for clock changes first took place in 2007.
There are many who don’t want the clocks to change at all, though they disagree about whether standard time or daylight saving is better.
- Read more: Daylight saving time: When to change the clocks as dueling bills push to end the practice
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio reintroduced the Sunshine Protection Act earlier this year on the federal level, which would create a permanent daylight saving time.
“This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid,” Rubio said in a statement on his website. “Locking the clock has overwhelming bipartisan and popular support. This Congress, I hope that we can finally get this done.”
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, state Rep. Angelo Puppolo Jr. of Springfield has sponsored a state-level bill, that would also end the practice of switching clocks, but it would keep standard time rather than daylight saving time.
The bill, H.3103, has been referred to the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
Both bills face an uphill climb to get passed.
Two states, Hawaii and Arizona, already don’t have to worry about changing the clocks. Both states opted out of using daylight saving time — Hawaii in 1967 and Arizona in 1968 — because they already had plenty of daylight, according to Readers Digest.
