‘I tried to just not recognize it’: Curley shares his hatred for Daylight Saving Time, switching times twice a year

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

Dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, the bill, which passed the House on a 308-117 vote, argued that more daylight would be available when Americans are most active.

KIRO host John Curley made it clear that farmers should receive credit for initiating this idea.

“Farmers were the ones who sort of started the thing. They lobbied to stop it because they said, ‘Listen, it’s screwing up everything. The cows got to get milked at a certain time. We don’t want it. Get rid of it,'” Curley said. “During World War I, it was Woodrow Wilson who said, ‘Yeah, we want this. It’s going to be able to save a lot of energy, and that’ll be good for everybody.’And then they stopped it, brought it back again. Then Roosevelt brought it back again for World War II. Then Johnson gets involved. There’s a whole bunch of back-and-forth. Just get rid of it. All the states that have been lobbying for this thing are just waiting for the federal government to finally be able to say, ‘OK, we don’t need it anymore. There’s no need for it.'”

In 1973, Congress passed a law instituting permanent Daylight Saving Time for what was supposed to be a trial period from January 1974 to April 1975. It lasted until October, when it was repealed after public outcry. Among the concerns was the worry that schoolchildren would have to get to class in darkness. Now, school start times have shifted to a later start.

Curley cited that some people suffer health problems, primarily heart attacks, when the clocks roll back an hour. Both the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have championed a single time for the country to use instead of clocks switching twice a year.

A 2024 report by Chmura Economics & Analytics estimated that the total economic cost of Daylight Saving Time is approximately $672.02 million per year.

“I tried to live by not recognizing it. Last time we had it for the spring spring ahead, I thought I’m not going to change it,” Curley said. “I’m going to just hold the line on this. Let everybody else do it, and then that’d be one of my like adorable quirks.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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