Daylight saving time ends as effort to make permanent stalls

Nov. 5 (UPI) -- On Sunday, U.S. residents around the country, except for Arizona and Hawaii, will turn their clocks back one hour as daylight saving time comes to its annual end.

An effort to make daylight saving time permanent, though, is stuck in Congress. The House has not been able to come to an agreement on the tradition of turning the clocks, which started this year on March 13.

"We haven't been able to find consensus in the House on this yet," Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., told The Washington Post this week. "There are a broad variety of opinions about whether to keep the status quo, to move to a permanent time, and if so, what time that should be."

Pallone said Congress is weary of repeating the same mistakes it made almost 50 years ago when it made daylight saving time permanent, which led to widespread auto accidents and darker mornings. That effort was swiftly reversed.

"We don't want to make a hasty change and then have it reversed several years later after public opinion turns against it -- which is exactly what happened in the early 1970s," Pallone said.

In March, the U.S. Senate approved a bipartisan bill that would make daylight saving time standard for all states except Arizona and Hawaii. The House did not advance the Sunshine Protection Act.

The U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not follow daylight saving time.

While daylight saving time has its supporters, it does have its foes. Rafael Pelayo, a sleep specialist at Stanford University, said standard time acts more in accordance with people's natural body rhythm.

"Standard time is a more natural cycle," Pelayo said. "In nature, we fall asleep to darkness and we wake up to light."

Katherine J. Wu, of The Atlantic, said the lure of the 25-hour day, even if it only comes once a year, is too attractive to give up.

"Falling back, to me, is its own joy," Wu wrote in the magazine. "It recoups a springtime loss, and resets the clocks to the time that's always suited me best. It's wicked hard to fall asleep when the light lingers past 8 or 9 p.m. I also struggle to get out of bed without a hefty dose of morning light, which has been scarce in the past few weeks."

Daylight saving time returns again on March 12.