For No Compelling Reason, Senate Votes To Make DST Permanent
Now, you knew when the Senate all got together to pass a bill changing Daylight Savings Time, they had to be getting it wrong, right? Via the Washington Post:
After the Senate voted unanimously and with little discussion Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a statement cautioning that the move overlooks potential health risks associated with that time system. (The legislation, which would take effect next year, must get through the House and be signed by President Biden to become law.)
“We do applaud stopping the switching during the course of the year and settling on a permanent time,” said Jocelyn Cheng, a member of the AASM’s public safety committee. But, she added, “standard time, for so many scientific and circadian rationales and public health safety reasons, should really be what the permanent time is set to.”
The AASM made this stance clear in 2020 when it released a position statement recommending that the country institute year-round standard time. Its reasoning, in part, is that standard time is more closely associated with humans’ intrinsic circadian rhythm, and that disrupting that rhythm, as happens with daylight saving time, has been associated with increased risks of obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and depression.
They're senators! They got confused!