Favoring a Later Sunset

Halloween trick or treating might be safer and April would be brighter if Congress agrees to extend daylight-saving time. After years of bickering, the House has now passed a compromise bill that should be accepted by the Senate and signed into law by the President.

The measure would start daylight-saving time each year on the first Sunday of April rather than the last, beginning in 1986. It would extend the extra hour of daylight one additional week in the fall, through the first Sunday of November, also starting next year. It passed Tuesday on a 240-157 vote over the traditional protests of farm area lawmakers who claim daylight-saving time makes dark mornings more difficult for rural folk and dangerous for children going to school.

Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) was one who protested the bill sponsored by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.): “While you in the city are sleeping away the morning hours, they (the farmers) are up doing the chores.” Obviously, Rogers never saw the San Diego Freeway at 6 a.m., daylight or dark. Markey argued that the sun would come up no later with daylight time in April than it would under standard time during the winter months.

Dark mornings are no more fun in the cities than in the country. Joggers and early morning commuters will have to watch for each other. City school kids face hazards on the way to morning class, too. Besides, a farmer can appreciate a lovely, longer April evening just as well as his city cousin. And think of the benefit for the kids when Mom says, “Now be sure to get home before dark.”