A Stitch in Haste

Back in April I blogged about an asinine proposal to extend Daylight Savings Time by two months, supposedly to reduce our oil consumption by a whopping 1/120 of 1%.

It now appears that Congress is ready to approve the placebo measure (WSJ - $):

The move was first approved in May as part of the energy bill by the House. The idea has now been agreed upon by House and Senate committee staffs, with the approval of both Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats. That means it is likely to be approved by the full House-Senate conference committee, which begins squaring the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill this week.

I noted back in April that there would be costs to the transition that were, of course, being ignored by the politicians, such as the need to reprogram computer operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. Here are some more:

Some parent groups have been opposed to it because it can mean sending children to school when it is still dark.

And the change would throw U.S. international schedules further out of synchronization with Europe, where daylight-saving time starts on the last Sunday of March. The Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. air carriers, says the move would cost the U.S. airline industry $147 million and cause "significant disruption" in overseas passenger travel. [UPDATE: See also in the comments about the problem of Canadian synchronization. --Kip]

The idea that we're "creating" daylight or making everybody's lives easier is of course utter nonsense. We're merely transferring daylight, much as we transfer income or wealth through progressive taxation, from one less favored group (morning people) to another more favored group (evening people).

To corrupt a saying: the sun never sets on the government bureaucracy.

Hat tip to Ozark Lad.

UPDATE #1: OpinionJournal weighs in against the extension.

UPDATE #2: Although late to the party (did they forget to set their clocks?), Marginal Revolution has a good post on the subject — does DST kill?

UPDATE #3: There's actually a professional DST critic named Michael Downing and he provides a thorough history of DST and decimates the "energy-saving" myth here.