Utah senators were worried about making Utah a “peculiar” outlier, but the sun hasn’t set on embracing daylight saving.
By Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.
Utahns may not like it, but they’re going to have to keep moving their clocks back and forth twice a year after the Utah Senate killed a bill that would have stopped Utah from moving clocks forward in the spring.
Stopping the clock shuffle has been a perennial issue on Capitol Hill, and in 2020 the Legislature passed a bill that would adopt permanent daylight savings — keeping clocks an hour ahead — but only if the four other Western states do the same and Congress acts to allow the change.
But Congress hasn’t acted on the issue. Toquerville Republican Rep Joseph Elison’s HB120 would have quit the waiting and kept Utah on standard time. The bill passed the House 52-23 earlier this month.
Members of the Senate Business and Labor Committee weren’t willing to have Utah be a renegade on the issue, though, and are content to wait on federal action.
“We are a peculiar people,” said Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, “but I don’t know if we want to be extra peculiar with our international airport and surrounding states standing out with a different time zone.”
By a tally of 7-1, the senators voted to essentially kill the bill for this session.
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