Permanent daylight savings time? GBH News hosts disagree

The yearly tradition of debating daylight savings time is back, after the clocks skipped an hour ahead this weekend. Jim Braude, host of GBH’s Boston Public Radio and Greater Boston, wrote an op-ed for the Boston Globe arguing that daylight saving time should last all year. He joined hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel on GBH's Morning Edition to stir the debate. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Paris Alston: Jim, thanks for being with us. So to clarify, Jim, you want to stay where we are now, right? You want to keep this year-round?

Jim Braude: Yeah. Like most other sane people, I believe the more sunlight we have in our lives, the happier we'll be. Do either of you know anybody who is unhappy that the sun didn't set ‘til 6:48 yesterday as opposed to the day before when it was at dinner time?

Alston: You bet. I'm looking at one across from me, right now!

Jeremy Siegel: We'll get to that in a little bit, but I think I am one of those people.

Alston: And I got to say I am too. In your op-ed, I love that line where you're like, "Is there anyone who doesn't love more sun in the evening?" And I'm like, Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel, because we got to go to bed.

Braude: Well, you left out one — and vampires. The two of you and vampires are against this, apparently, but I think that's about it.

Alston: So, Jim, there is a national effort and a state effort here in Massachusetts to get rid of the time change. So tell us a little bit about those efforts and where do they stand?

Braude: Well, there's not much of an effort here at the moment. There was a commission appointed by the governor, as in Baker, a few years ago that met and recommended — I think it was nine to one — but overwhelmingly, yes, we do it, but only if the other New England states and New York [do]. Charlie Baker wasn't crazy about it. I actually interviewed him for the piece I did for the Globe magazine yesterday. He's sort of "I could go either way."

So, Massachusetts is not one of the, I think, dozen and a half states that have said we want to do this thing, but ultimately it's up to Congress. Congress has got to do something. They've got to pass a law. The Sunshine Protection Act is co-sponsored by Marco Rubio from Florida and our own Ed Markey. Markey will be with us this afternoon on BPR, by the way, at 1:30 to talk about this and other things. So it's pending, and it appears that there's as much optimism about it actually getting 60 votes in the Senate as there has ever been.

Alston: So, maybe this could happen.

Siegel: Jim, as Paris mentioned, we're a fan of jumping back and forth of having both times here in the U.S. I joked last week that I wanted to debate you on this, but in all seriousness, what is your argument in favor of keeping where we just switch to right now and not switching our clocks going forward?

Braude: Well, there are a variety of things. One, the additional sun in and of itself means, and this is all statistics — there's evidence for this is one, there is less crime. There is a slightly lower use of energy, which I assume matters to everybody. And there are mental health and physical health consequences proven from these time switches in terms of heart and strokes and depression, a whole variety of things. So, you know, I wasn't being facetious in my piece when I said, and you two I think are the outliers is there, I don't really see much argument on the other side of this thinking. Do you want to give me one?

Siegel: Ok, I want to bring up a few for you here. One, we're in Boston, where right now we're getting that extra sunlight at night and our sunset is just before 7 p.m. It's in the six o'clock hour. But like, I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, initially, which is also on the East Coast time zone. But for us, that means in Cincinnati sunset around eight p.m. going into the summer, maybe even later. And when you do look at stats, while people might support getting rid of switching our clocks back and forth, people are very split on what time zone they actually want to be in, whether they want to have an extra hour at night or in the morning of sun.

Alston: Where would we fall, was my question in this?

Braude: You have darker, you have darker mornings. But with all due respect to you two, most people aren't getting up at two o'clock in the morning to go to work. And the issue about the morning darkness — the only one that really moved or concerned me, I should say, is the whole school kids thing.

Siegel: Yeah, kids in the dark and cold headed out to school.

Alston: Well I'd add to that, parents who have small kids who have to go to school, they got to get them to bed the night before. And if the sun's still shining, this is hard.

Braude: They call that pulling down the blinds, I believe, is the expression for that. But in any case, I called Glenn Koocher, head of the Mass. Association of School Committees. He's been there 21 years. He's a former school committee member before that in Cambridge. He hasn't heard one time, the issue raised about kids and darkness, and he went on to say, frankly, it might provide some impetus for something that he, the American Pediatrics Association, the CDC believes in, is starting school later so the kids can get more sleep. So I find the morning darkness argument frankly, not very persuasive.

Alston: Well, I do have to tell you both that I remember distinctly one night, I think it was my senior year of college. We were out and it was fall back time, so we got an extra hour while being out. And I kind of am a fan of that. This happened to me twice in my life and I'm like, you know, if it's daylight saving happens on a weekend and you get that extra hour, you can't be mad at that.

Braude: You can't. Well, I don't think you're going to be mad at it tonight when it's 6:49. I'm serious.

Alston: I mean, I'll give it a few days. I think the sleep schedule is going to be thrown off.

Braude: Yeah, you'll ultimately acclimate. I think I really think you will.

Siegel: But before we let you go, Jim, we wanted to ask, I mean, you're talking to Senator Ed Markey later today [on BPR] about this effort. It does look like Congress might be thinking this has a better shot this time around. I mean, do you think this effort will actually be successful or is this a pipe dream for both you and the senator?

Braude: Well, all I know is what he and Senator Rubio have told me, which is they have nine Republicans. If all the Democrats are on board and I don't know if they are yet, we'll find out this afternoon. That means there's only one more that's needed. And Rubio told me that he hasn't heard any opposition. So I hate to be optimistic about anything that happens in Congress, but I think this may be the year.