The Politics of Daylight Savings Time

Here’s an energy policy trivia question for you. What do you get when you have a Republican control Congress with Texas Republican Tom Delay as House Majority Leader along with two oil men, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of the executive branch? Give up? Here’s a hint. This morning it cost you and most notably your kids an extra hour of sleep a few weeks earlier than normal.

The Energy Policy Act in 2005 extended daylight saving time by four weeks starting in 2007 from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. The objective, or the hope, was to save 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses during daylight hours.

But what if the amount of energy saved during daylight hours is offset by the increase in usage in the morning hours when depending on where you live it may still be dark outside when the alarm clock goes off? And what about reducing energy cost? The law of supply and demand dictates that reducing oil consumption should reduce oil prices. However, prices can be fixed to remain stable or even increase by OPEC who can simply reduce production in order to artificially increase prices, manipulating the laws of supply and demand to its advantage.

The results of the effectiveness of daylight savings in energy conservation is all over the place. Therefore it is uncertain as to whether or not daylight saving time conserves energy. However what is absolutely certain is the conservation of profits of the big oil industry. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave huge tax breaks to American energy companies and corporate polluters, allowed for drilling both off shore and in the Alaskan Wild Life Refuge, and even shielded manufacturers of motor fuels and other persons from liability for claims based on defective product relating to motor vehicle fuel.

Watch as Rep. Fortney Stark (D-CA) voices his opposition to this bill:

Extending daylight savings time was a fuzzy attempt to disguise a deficit spending $14.5 billion tax break to the energy companies while pretending to exact real reform. And with subsequence summers of over $3 a gallon gas prices of 2007 and $4 a gallon gas prices in 2008, daylight savings time wasn’t the only thing making Americans lose sleep during the past few years.