Benefits, disadvantages remain as well as desire to shift from status quo
By COLIN YOUNG
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Oct. 29, 2026…..As Bay Staters prepare to turn the clocks back this weekend and begin facing late-afternoon sunsets, the Senate gave initial approval Thursday to legislation to eliminate the twice-annual clock changes.
The five Democrats on the Senate Rules Committee voted Thursday to advance legislation (S 2157) that seeks to move Massachusetts to Atlantic Standard Time — essentially the clock time that Massachusetts observes between March and November — year-round. The committee’s two Republicans did not take a for-or-against position. The Senate voted to advance the bill during its informal session Thursday, although a second vote will be needed to send it to the House.
It earned an endorsement from Senate President Karen Spilka when the state switched to Eastern Daylight Time in March, when she declared, “This should be the last time that Massachusetts has to change our clocks. It would be better for our health, safer for our roads, and remove one more complication from everyone’s lives.”
The change, which a 2017 legislative commission said should only happen if a majority of neighboring states do the same, would only take effect if two or more of New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, or Maine either enter an agreement with Massachusetts to also adopt Atlantic Standard Time, pass legislation “having an identical effect,” or enact laws directing a state official to ask the federal government to move that state into the Atlantic zone. That’s a lower bar than the commission favored.
The 2017 commission recommended a switch only under certain circumstances, but found that changing to Atlantic Standard Time “has the potential to create economic growth in Massachusetts as people tend to shop, dine out and engage in commercial activities more in after-work daylight,” and that the switch “could improve public health in the Commonwealth by eliminating the annual spring transition to (daylight saving time) — and the corresponding increase in traffic fatalities, workplace injuries, and heart attacks.” The change could also produce energy savings, cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, reduce street crime and boost worker productivity, the report said.
But the change would come with “appreciable costs” and could also have detrimental effects, specifically on education. The 2017 report found that the time zone change “could pose a safety risk during the winter to children waiting for the school bus in the dark and to adolescents driving in the early morning.”
The state cannot change time zones unilaterally. The U.S. Department of Transportation sets time zone boundaries, and the Senate bill directs the governor to petition that department to move Massachusetts into the Atlantic zone within 120 days of the law’s effective date.
When the Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight gave the bill a hearing in July 2025, there was broad agreement among those who testified that Massachusetts should stop changing the clocks twice a year, but most opposed the bill the Senate advanced Thursday.
Instead, many people who testified argued in favor of H 3405, which would have the state stay on Eastern Standard Time year-round (essentially the clock time Massachusetts observes from November to March). That bill was sent to a study by House members of the committee this March.
Karin Johnson, a professor of neurology and a sleep medicine specialist practicing in Springfield, testified for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. She said she supports H 3405 for permanent standard time and “strongly” opposed S 2157 for permanent daylight savings time.
“Think about how you or your children feel when you don’t get enough sleep. You may have missed a meeting, drifted out of your lane, eaten an extra bowl of ice cream. Now, instead, think about how much better you feel after a good night’s sleep. Permanent standard time will give more people the opportunity to improve their sleep without even trying,” she said at the July 2025 hearing. Johnson added, “The timing of sunlight is critically important. Without enough morning light or with too much evening light, our circadian rhythms delay, disrupting our sleep patterns and our body and brain functions.”
Johnson said the 2017 commission report only considered the short-term benefits after the clock change and not “the long-term impacts on health and safety.”
“Permanent daylight savings time would delay sunrises in Massachusetts after 8 a.m. for two months every winter, depriving us of critical morning light. This is why permanent daylight savings time is exponentially worse than seasonal daylight savings time,” she argued.
Jay Pea, an Arizona man who identified himself as the president of the group Save Standard Time, told the committee last summer that Atlantic Standard Time would be “permanent daylight time by another name.”
“Daylight saving time is a mandate to wake early. When you turn your clock ahead one hour in the spring, the next morning your alarm clock sounds an hour earlier than it did the day before, and it continues to sound an hour earlier than it was on standard time until you put it back to standard time,” he said. “Now, if people really like daylight saving time, they would be waking themselves up earlier.”
Testimony in support of the Senate time zone shift bill came from sponsor Sen. John Keenan (in writing) and a constituent of his, Tom Emswiler of Quincy, who wrote a 2014 op-ed in the Boston Globe sparking renewed interest in the idea. Emswiler served on the 2017 commission.
“In November 2017, by a vote of nine to one, we endorsed a careful, deliberate regional move with other states to observe Atlantic Standard Time year-round, effectively the same as having daylight saving time year-round,” he said. Emswiler added, “In addition to losing those awful dark afternoons, we’d also see health benefits from losing Sleepy Monday every spring, a dangerous day where we give millions of people jet lag.”
Senators did not weigh in on the merits of the idea during the 2025 hearing, but House chair Rep. Antonio Cabral was interested in hearing more about the issue and how it might affect school start times and more.
“I kind of like more daytime or light time in the evening, myself,” the New Bedford Democrat said.
Colin Young is the deputy editor for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach him at colin.young@statehousenews.com.
