YORK COUNTY — Missing that extra hour of sleep this morning?
Daylight Saving Time, the practice of setting the clock ahead for one hour during the warmer part of the year so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less, officially began again at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Maine, along with most regions of the United States observe Daylight Saving Time, with the exceptions being the states of Arizona and Hawaii, the U.S. territories of Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and portions of Indiana.
In the wee hours of the morning Sunday, clocks moved from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.
For areas that observe daylight saving time, the time change runs for a total of 34 weeks or about 238 days every year, which equates to about 65 percent of the entire calendar year.
The practice of Daylight Saving Time was an idea proposed by Benjamin Franklin but never implemented until 1916 by Germany during World War I. It was first tried in America in 1918.
The time change was so disliked by residents of the United States that it was abandoned in 1919 and not brought back until the 1940s during World War II as the year-round “War Time,” a way for the country to save energy nationwide.
With the war’s end in 1945, some areas of the United States continued Daylight Saving Time and some did not. In 1966, Congress voted to make the practice uniform and official for the nation.
Just this year, two bills are being considered in the Maine legislature that propose to end daylight saving time in the state.
State Rep. Chris Kessler D-South Portland has proposed moving Maine into the Atlantic time zone, which would mean the state would no longer set clocks back in fall and State Rep. Donna Bailey D-Saco has proposed keeping Maine in Eastern Daylight Time all year if the federal government eliminates daylight saving time nationwide.
A hearing is scheduled for both bills is set for Monday.
Eliminating daylight saving time is allowed under federal law, and so far two states, Hawaii and Arizona have opted to do, but the change puts them in a different time zone than neighbors nearby roughly eight months out of the year.
Daylight Saving Time ends this year at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3 when once more you’ll be able to regain that extra hour of sleep.
— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com
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