Pennsylvanians will soon lose sleep to daylight saving time. When to change your clocks
If you’re in need of more sunlight, you don’t have to wait much longer. Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 10, when Pennsylvania residents “spring forward” and move their clocks ahead one hour.
Spring officially begins Tuesday, March 19, though State College residents still have some snowy weather in the forecast.
With the prospect of losing an hour of sleep on the calendar each year, Pennsylvania officials have made attempts to put an end to clock-changing twice a year. Here’s what to know.
Daylight saving legislation in Pennsylvania, across the US
The Pennsylvania legislature introduced a bill in 2021 that would end the use of daylight saving time in the commonwealth, but it was “laid on the table” in January 2022 and essentially died.
At least two Pennsylvania lawmakers have urged the U.S. Congress to make daylight saving time permanent in the past year.
These recent attempts were far from the only efforts to end clock-changing, and the U.S. Senate has signed off on similar legislation for the nation. So far, Hawaii and Arizona are the only states in the country that don’t observe daylight saving time, and the Navajo Nation portion of Arizona does practice daylight saving.
History of daylight saving
The original daylight saving law passed the U.S. Congress in 1918, and state governments were left with the decision to keep or scrap it after World War I, CNBC previously reported.
The Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966 and requires state governments that choose to observe daylight saving to begin and end the practice on federally determined dates.
“Under the Uniform Time Act, States may choose to exempt themselves from observing Daylight Saving Time by State law,” the U.S. Department of Transportation website reads. “States do not have the authority to choose to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time.”
This year’s daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3.
