Bill Extending Daylight Time Voted by House

In the name of boosting business, leisure and Halloween trick-or-treating, the House voted decisively Tuesday to expand daylight-saving time by four weeks--three in April and one in October-November.

The compromise bill, approved 240 to 157, faces an uphill struggle in the Senate, where well-positioned opponents maintain that farmers and rural school bus riders would suffer from the increased number of dark mornings. Under daylight-saving, the sun rises an hour later than on standard time.

Proponents of the House legislation, led by urban Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Californian Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), contended that expanding daylight-saving time would benefit an array of homebound commuters, shoppers, business firms, golfers, “night-blindness” victims and others who like daylight-saving’s other feature: hour-later sunsets.

Halloween Safety Cited

Another beneficiary would be trick-or-treaters. To sweeten the controversial bill--which is aimed primarily at shedding more light on spring evenings--sponsors brought Halloween into daylight-saving time, saying that the added visibility would make children’s candy hunts safer.

Currently, daylight-saving time runs from the last Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October, which usually falls just before Halloween. The bill originally sought to extend daylight-saving by two months, beginning in March, but a compromise agreement set the new period from the first Sunday in April until the first Sunday in November.

Legislation to expand daylight-saving has had rough going in Congress over the last few years, even though proponents maintained it would significantly conserve energy, reduce crime and cut traffic accidents.

This year’s bill hit a greased track in the House when the compromise was reached--and when a large number of business groups got behind the measure for the first time, arguing that job-creating sales could be increased by several billion dollars per year.

The lobbying coalition included convenience stores, charcoal briquette makers, amusement parks, sporting goods manufacturers, shrub-planting interests and--with Halloween in the bill--the Chocolate Manufacturers Assn., the National Candy Brokers Assn. and the National Confectioners Assn.

The Senate Commerce Committee has set a hearing for next Thursday--which, by no accident, is Halloween--on legislation nearly identical to the House-passed measure. The committee’s membership is loaded with opponents of daylight-saving, including Chairman John C. Danforth (R-Mo.). Another Senate opponent of daylight-saving has been Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). The Senate bill is sponsored by Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) and George J. Mitchell (D-Me.).

‘Who’s Who of Fun’

In House debate Tuesday, Markey declared that the legislation would “bring a little sunshine into everyone’s life.” He said that it was supported by “a coalition that reads like a Who’s Who of summertime fun.”

However, Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), who represents a rural district on the western end of the Eastern time zone, protested vigorously against the effort to “tinker with God’s time.”

Saying most of his constituents would like to see daylight-saving cut back, not expanded, Rogers added:

“While those of you in the city are sleeping away the morning hours, my farmers are doing chores getting food ready for your breakfast table . . . . Cold mornings are a special problem for farmers who go to work in factories . . . . Children will be forced to walk to the bus in the dark along highways with no sidewalks.”

Astronomy Invoked

Markey countered, saying that astronomical tables show that the months of October, November, December, January and February have later sunrises than the month of April.

“If children are unsafe, school districts ought to change the time school starts,” he said.

Citing a Department of Transportation study, Markey said that extending daylight-saving time could save the equivalent of 100,000 barrels per day of oil and reduce traffic fatalities by 1.5% to 2%.