Joe Sneve

jsneve@argusleader.com

A bill to make daylight saving time permanent has taken another step toward becoming law.

The South Dakota Senate’s Commerce and Energy Committee voted 5-2 to send a measure to “reject standard time” and keep in place daylight saving time indefinitely to the Senate floor.

Primarily sponsored by Sen. Betty Olson and Rep. J. Sam Marty, both of Prairie City, the measure would stop the twice-a-year routine of switching clocks and keep the sun up past 5:30 p.m. year-round. It would also mean on some occasions the sun wouldn’t come up until 9 a.m.

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Olson said she and many of her neighbors are “darn sick” of switching clocks and having to adjust to the change.

If passed, South Dakota would join Arizona and Hawaii as the only states that would not change clocks twice a year. However, those states don’t observe daily savings time and instead operate on standard time throughout the year.

Olson said she prefers standard time, but her husband likes daylight saving time, so she went with that as a compromise in the bill.

Republican Sen. Brock Greenfield said he doesn’t see the harm in more discussion and noted that “the times have changed” since the inception of daylight saving time.

A similar bill introduced in the Legislature last year failed to advance out of committee hearings.

Throw me a line on Twitter @Argus_Joe, call 331-2318 or email jsneve@argusleader.com and tell me what you think about the idea of sticking with daylight savings time permanently.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

