The sun sets at South Beach State Park near Newport. Oregon residents would see earlier summer sunsets under a permanent standard time proposal. (Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Five years after Oregon lawmakers passed a bipartisan law to permanently stay on daylight time, Oregonians are still stuck changing their clocks twice a year.
States can’t switch to permanent daylight time without congressional approval, though they can choose to opt out of daylight saving time altogether. Now, the state senator who led the effort five years ago to ditch standard time is spearheading a new multistate effort to stick with standard time year-round. A Senate committee is expected to vote on Sen. Kim Thatcher’s proposal on Thursday.
Thatcher, R-Keizer, told the Senate Committee on Veterans, Emergency Management, Federal and World Affairs on Tuesday that Senate Bill 1548 comes after years of trying to work with other West Coast states to adopt permanent daylight time.
“We don’t have to ask permission from the federal government. We don’t have to say ‘Mother may I?’ as a state,” Thatcher said.