Daylight Saving Time – You either love it hate it.
No matter it comes on March 13 as we spring forward one hour. Despite more than 50 years of nearly uniform observance since 1966, 29 states have introduced legislation between 2015 and 2019 to abolish the twice-yearly changing of the clocks. At the end of 2021 a total of 33 states have proposed bills to stop switching time.
Some states want Daylight Saving Time all year, want it eliminated all together, while others have different stipulations; however, the authority to change lies with the Department of Transportation, a power it has held since its foundation in 1966.
DST was first introduced in England, but it came to America in spring 1917 after President Woodrow Wilson declared war. Suddenly energy conservation was of major importance and many efforts were launched to enlist public support for changing the clocks. The National Daylight Saving Convention group distributed postcards showing Uncle Sam holding a garden hoe and rifle, turning back the hands of a huge pocket watch. Voters were asked to sign and mail their congressman postcards declaring, “If I have more daylight, I can work longer for my country. We need every hour of light.”
Congress declared the time change on March 31, 1918.

Many have wrongly pointed to farmers as the driving for DST, but they were in fact some of the strongest opponents and resisted it from the beginning. After the war opposition arose and the time change lasted only until 1920 when the law was repealed.
The subject did not come up again until after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and America was once more at war. After the war it was used on and off in different states. To remedy the confusion Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, establishing consistent use of Daylight Saving Time within the U.S. In 1986 the DST was expanded with a goal to conserve oil used to generate electricity. The current policy was established with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that went into effect in 2007.