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The authors noted, "Consistent with Benjamin Franklin's original conjecture, DST is found to save on electricity used for illumination, but there are increases in electricity used for heating and cooling."
quote:
3/10/2012 10:02:00 PM
Why Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time
Nicholas DeMarino
The Daily Courier
A minute after 1:59 a.m. Sunday, most Americans sprung an hour forward to 3 a.m. for daylight saving time.
Most Arizonans didn't.
"There's a Navajo saying about it," said Marshall Trimble, Arizona's State Historian, "That only the U.S. government could believe that when you chop the top off a blanket it and sew it on the bottom, you have a longer blanket."
Despite the brickbat, the Navajo Nation does celebrate daylight saving time throughout its stakes in the Four Corners area. That includes Arizona, which hasn't practiced synchronized clock tinkering since the late 1960s.
Some tribes, including the Hopi and, locally, the Yavapai-Prescott Tribe, don't spring forward in Arizona, but others do.
This creates time zone pockets within time zone pockets, potentially instigating cluster headaches for travelers in northeastern Arizona.
"Depending on where you're coming from, you could change your watch, drive a few miles, change it again, drive a few miles and change it again," said Trimble, who's lectured on the subject in academic settings.
It begs the question, why does anyone bother with daylight saving time in the first place?
The rationales and histories behind the practice are more convoluted than first glance, and Arizona, it turns out, has a messier tale to tell than most.
War time
Benjamin Franklin is widely credited with coming up with the concept of daylight saving time.
The 18th-century icon espoused the idea in a satiric essay, as he was wont to do, advocating a later sunset to decrease use of fuel for artificial lights.
More than 100 years later, countries around the world got on board to conserve resources during World War I.
The U.S. Congress passed the first daylight saving time legislation on March 19, 1918. Originally, the hour shift was from the second Sunday in March through the second Sunday in October. After some state and federal push-me-pull-yous, Arizona and other states returned to standard time during the last third of 1919.
On Feb. 9, 1942, the nation went back on "war time." Arizona went along again, although there was a string of proclamations and repeals and re-appeals in 1944.
Arizona didn't enter the fray again until the late 1960s.
Sunrise, sunset
During the mid-20th century some states continued observing daylight saving time, while others did not.
The federal Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a national daylight saving time from the last Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October. Per the bill, states could opt out, but Arizona didn't, and residents adjusted their clocks, both mental and ontic, in 1967.
That year, on June 21, the sun set at a record-late 8:41 p.m. in Arizona.
"I remember reading the commentary in the paper," Trimble said. "One of the pundits said something to the effect that we've got enough sunshine without the extra hour."
Business owners, in particular, claimed it was hurting sales, and the state Legislature took up the issue, yet again.
The following brief from The Associated Press appeared on the front page of the Prescott Daily Courier on March 21, 1968:
"The Arizona Legislature today sent to the governor a bill to exempt Arizona from daylight savings (sic) time without any public referendum on the issue. The measure was approved 49-1 in the House and 25-3 in the Senate."
That was pretty much the end of Arizona's hot-cold relationship with daylight saving time.
Dubious benefits
In 2005, a federal bill extended the length of daylight saving time from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November beginning in 2007. This didn't affect non-participating states and U.S. territories, which include Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
In 2008 the U.S. Energy Department released a report showing the extended hours in 2007 saved roughly equivalent of 0.5 percent in total daily electricity saving, or "0.03 percent of electricity consumption over the year."
That's just the extension, though, and what few other studies about daylight saving time exist have conflicting results.
Also in 2008, a working paper using data from Indiana was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that showed daylight saving time actually increased electricity use. The authors noted, "Consistent with Benjamin Franklin's original conjecture, DST is found to save on electricity used for illumination, but there are increases in electricity used for heating and cooling."
Their findings showed an average household cost of $3.29. Still, that's just one study in Indiana.
Within and without
So what happens locally without daylight saving time? According to many business promoters and city and town officials in Prescott area, not much.
"Folks in our visitors center who are looking to move here rarely mention it," said Marnie Uhl, C.E.O. of the Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce. "When they find out, they usually find it nice because it's not complicated. I don't think it's ever come up on the business end of things."
Over at Prescott's Tourism Department, Director Don Prince said it's never come up.
"I think everybody knows Arizona is a little different that way," said Robert Coombs, Prescott's visitor information center manager. "I've never heard anything about it."
And Yavapai-Prescott Tribe land? That's not a problem, as the tribe doesn't observe daylight saving time.
But, when dealing with musicians from outside the state, it can sometimes enter the equation.
"Every now and again, I'll get a call from a band running late because of it," said Bobby Joe Kolar, who does the booking for Prescott's Lyzzard's Lounge. "I'm a lifelong Arizonan, though, and I find the whole daylight saving time thing kind of confusing in the first place."
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