Daylight saving ends this weekend. Why Oregon’s law making it permanent isn’t in effect
By Joe Hathaway on Friday, November 3rd, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
NORTHEAST OREGON — Don’t forget to set your clocks back!
Daylight saving time ends in Oregon this weekend, falling back an hour at 2:00am Sunday.
Re-setting clocks in the fall and spring started during World War II as a way to reduce power usage.
In our wildly partisan times, daylight saving time serves as a collective groan across Oregon’s population that everyone can agree upon. But just a few years ago, daylight saving time almost became permanent.
In 2019, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill with bipartisan support to adopt daylight saving time year round. That would mean an end to “spring forward, fall back” and countless missed breakfast dates, hair appointments, golf tee times and church services the next day.
But in order to take effect, all three West Coast states had to make the same decision and get approval from Congress. Washington legislators also approved the change that year. But in California, voters also approved year-round daylight saving time, but the effort died in the legislature and with it so did Oregon’s efforts.
The federal government also attempted to make daylight saving time permanent recently. In 2022, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bi-partisan bill called the Sunshine Protection Act but it promptly died in the House of Representatives.
Until and unless Congress makes those changes, we’ll still spring forward in March and fall back in November — at least for the foreseeable future.
