Humorist OpEd column: 19 Things That It Took Me 50 Years To Learn (1996)
daryld.com

... 13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time. ...

How does Daylight Saving Time save energy? (I don't see a date on the article)
energyharbor.com

...

Fall back. Spring forward. It's the easiest way to remember which way to set the clock when Daylight Saving Time (DST) rolls around " and whether to grumble about short days or lost sleep.

Though the time change often feels like a pain in the clockworks, not only does it give us all more daylight to enjoy, it also reduces our collective energy consumption.

How much it reduces our energy consumption is another question altogether.
A brief history of Daylight Saving Time

You may have heard that Benjamin Franklin rst introduced the concept of DST in the late 1700s. He didn't, though Franklin did tell Parisians that changing their sleep routine would help reduce candle consumption.

Or someone may have taught you DST was created to give the U.S.'s growing agricultural industry more sunlight for eld work. Truth is, the agriculture industry actively lobbied against DST in 1919. Turns out, DST disrupts a farm's natural ow. If cows are milked at 6 a.m., a shift in time makes it more dicult for farm sta and animals. Either the sta work an hour earlier or the retrain the cows on the new milking time.

DST was actually introduced as an energy savings measure in Germany and the U.S. during World War I. After the war, the U.S. repealed the measure.

It returned in World War II in the U.S. and has hung around ever since. There was no conformity regarding DST during the years that followed. States could " and did " switch between DST and standard time whenever they wanted, for whatever reason they wanted to.

In 1966, the U.S. passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized DST's start and end dates. The twice annual turning of the clock has caused debate ever since.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act in March 2022, which would make DST permanent. Even that has caused a stir. Kenneth Wright, director of Colorado University's Sleep and Chronobiology lab, says the time change should go -- but we should choose standard time over DST to avoid sleepy drivers in the morning and our bodies wanting to stay up later at night. ...

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME BEGINS MARCH 11, 2007 (February 2007)
www.markey.senate.gov

... The change come due to the 2005 Energy Bill that was first introduced by Representative Edward Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) to save energy. An analysis of the Upton-Markey Daylight Saving Time amendment by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) found that by 2020, the amendment would cumulatively: save consumers $4.4 billion dollars, avoid the need to build more than 3 large (330 megawatt) electric power plants, avoid consumption of 279 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and avoid nearly 10.8 million metric tons of the carbon emissions that lead to Global Warming. This is because people consume less electricity in the evening if it's still light, and that cuts peak demand during the early evening hours.

"In addition to the benefits of energy saving, less crime, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity, day light saving just brings a smile to everybody's faces," said Rep. Markey.

The Upton-Markey amendment is supported by studies which show that early daylight saving time and longer days decrease the number of fatal traffic accidents, reduce crime rates, and provide relief for individuals suffering from "night blindness." A broad coalition of groups including organizations like the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores and the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness, and an array of small businesses which support American pastimes, from barbecue to baseball to boating support the legislation to extend daylight saving. ...

For NYC ...
www.timeanddate.com