A reminder: mail to tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov is not working (temporarily, I hope). For now, send time-zone stuff to arthur_david_olson@nih.gov --ado -----Original Message----- From: John Hawkinson [mailto:jhawk@MIT.EDU] Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 4:07 PM To: arthur_david_olson@nih.gov Subject: Re: FW: US DST changes? [ Sent to Arthur, since the list is still down. ftp server works great, though... ]

An article in ran on page D1 of Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Set to Expand Daylight-Savings Time," discussing the "Energy Policy Act of 2005," which might extend US DST by 1 month in both directions (Mar-Nov instead of Apr-Oct).

Some updates in the past two days, both in the WSJ. There was a Reuters story on Wednesday, but it seemed very confusing and at-odds with the two SJ stories. Wednesday's WSJ, p. D2, "Daylight-Savings Expansion Plan Is Ripped by Airlines, Churches" by John J. Fialka: "Facing objections from the Bush administration, church groups and others opposed to extending daylight-savings time, House and Senate conferees on the energy bill postponed a decision on the proposal until tomorrow." [i.e. until today, Thursday.] It goes on to cite a letter from the Energy Secretary on behalf of the Bush adminisration requesting the change be dropped because of "serious international harmonization problems for the transportation industry," apparently referring to the coordination of gate slots with Europoean airports, whose DST is currently roughly synchronized with the US's. The article also references church groups who oppose the extension "because it would require children to wait for school buses in the dark." Then, today's WSJ, D2, "Daylight-Savings Plan Might Be Scaled Back," again by Fialka: "The principal sponsor of a proposal to expand daylight-savings time by two months says talks are under way to scale back the change." It goes on to say, "Some senators have complained that the proposed change will be expensive, an issue underscored yesterday as software vendors and utilities arned that computer software and meters with electronic chips that record time will have to be changed, a project that could take years and cost millions of dollars." [Well, ok, that seems excessive.] It then paraphrases David Thewlis of Calconnect.Org, a "consortium of software companies and universities," saying, "the group has no position on the merits of the proposal, which is intended to save energy, but wants Congress to postpone an change until March 2008, to give members and consumers time to make and install the fixes." [Apparently Calconnect.org includes Oracle and Yahoo, as well as MIT and Stanford. Who knew?] --jhawk@mit.edu John Hawkinson