As clocks moved forward an hour and Americans lost sleep Sunday morning with daylight saving time, Sen. Ed Markey joined Boston Public Radio to talk about his daylight saving legislation, plus share his thoughts on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and climate change policy.
Markey wants to keep daylight saving time all year
In 2021, Markey introduced a bipartisan bill that would keep daylight saving time year round, which would result in more daylight in the afternoon during the dark winter months.
“Spring doesn't start until it's daylight after you get home from work, after you get home from school,” Markey said of the current system. “You can't start Little League until you have daylight saving time, you don't feel safe walking to the store if you're a woman.”
He’s long been carrying the torch to extend and expand daylight saving time. In the 1980s and again in 2005 Markey passed bills to lengthen it by moving the date.
His efforts to keep daylight saving time could be a rare bipartisan win. He says conservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has signed on, as well as nine other Republicans. Markey would only need 10 Republicans if he could get all the Democrats on board to pass his legislation in the Senate.
Markey’s motivations also come from potential energy-saving benefits — on top of the desire for extra daylight.
“People just feel better with daylight saving time,” he said.
When it comes to energy policy, “I do believe that we can do it”
The end of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, due to a gridlock brought by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, also brought the end of sweeping climate policy included in the bill. With Manchin reopening the possibility of a deal, Markey says he has hope for passing energy policy.
“I do believe that we can do it,” said Markey, whose office is working with Manchin to find a “sweet spot” on climate policy. “I take him [Manchin] at his word, he has said it over and over that climate's the easiest, energy is the easiest. ... My hope is that we can get a large portion of the climate provisions that were in the Build Back Better bill.”
Markey said he particularly hopes to see tax breaks for wind, solar and electric vehicles. “If we got just that, it would be historic,” he said. “That's our hope. I don't think it's going to happen in March — when we're going to be focusing on the Supreme Court nominee nomination — but I do believe that by the end of April, we have a chance to finish a package that it has a possibility of including major climate action.”
In response to Russia’s invasion, “We don’t want to trigger World War Three”
As Russia continues its attack on Ukraine, Markey called for a balance between supporting the Ukrainian military and refugees, and avoiding nuclear escalation. “Obviously our heart goes out, we can see the pain,” Markey said. “But at the same time, we don't want to trigger World War Three. We don't want to have an American military engagement with the Russians because that could escalate very quickly into a scenario that involves biological and nuclear weapons.”
In 2021, Markey introduced legislation with California Rep. Ted Lieu that would prevent the United States from deploying nuclear weapons unless attacked with nuclear weapons first. Markey said that he would particularly be worried about the use of nuclear weapons if former President Donald Trump were to get reelected in 2024.
“There needs to be a formalized process that's put in place to make sure that no one individual in our country has the ability to use nuclear weapons without first, in my opinion, having to come to Congress,” he said.
As gas prices rise as a result of Russia’s invasion, Markey also pointed to this moment as a reason to promote electric vehicles.
“I just think it is time for us to put an end to America's bankrolling of Putin's dirty oil piggy bank, that's the funding that he is using in order to deploy the tanks, the planes and the infantry into Ukraine,” he said. “It's not going to be, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ it's going to be, ‘Plug in, baby, plug in.’”
