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State Rep. Dan Laursen’s time has finally come. After five years of arguing that Wyoming should stop its twice a year time changes, Laursen’s colleagues in the Legislature have …
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State Rep. Dan Laursen’s time has finally come. After five years of arguing that Wyoming should stop its twice a year time changes, Laursen’s colleagues in the Legislature have agreed.
State lawmakers passed his bill earlier this month and Gov. Mark Gordon signed it into law last week. It could one day put Wyoming on daylight saving time — now observed from March through November — all year long.
“Pretty exciting,” said Laursen, who contends that the biannual time change disrupts commerce and daily schedules.
However, nothing will change unless Congress passes a law allowing states to switch to permanent daylight saving time and at least four of Wyoming’s neighboring states agree to make the switch, too. Two neighbors have already done so: Legislators in Idaho and Utah passed bills this year that would similarly abolish standard time.
If Wyoming is one day able to make the jump to “mountain daylight time,” it would result in darker mornings and brighter evenings in the winter months. For example, on the shortest day of the year in December, the sun would rise at 8:21 a.m. and set at 5:34 p.m. — instead of rising at 7:21 a.m. and setting at 4:34 p.m.
Laursen has aimed to end the time changes in every session since 2016, slowly gathering support. His bill nearly passed the Legislature in 2019, easily clearing the House before failing on a 15-15 vote in the Senate.
“It’s still the same battle,” Laursen said this month. “Some people want the light in the morning; some want it in the evening all year.”
State Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, was among those who helped kill the bill a year ago, saying then that “I and most of my constituents like [the] time change and look forward to it.” However, the senator changed his position this month — casting a decisive “aye” vote for the bill in an education committee meeting and then supporting the measure in three votes on the Senate floor.
“I told Rep. Laursen I’d support it this year; I’m not quite sure why, but I did,” Coe said. “I guess because I got tired of him bringing it.”
While Coe may have grown weary of the legislation, backers of the bill — which included the Wyoming Farm Bureau — said they and their constituents are sick of the time changes.
“This does, for once and all, get it to where you stay on the same time year-round,” Sen. Ogden Driskill, a Republican from Devils Tower and co-sponsor of the bill, said on the Senate floor this month. “This is not only a health and safety issue, but a common sense issue.”
Driskill was apparently alluding to scientific research suggesting the biannual time changes disrupt sleep patterns, leading to more car crashes and heart attacks in the days following the change.
During debate, Sen. Wyatt Agar, R-Thermopolis — who once lived in a house that straddled the Mountain and Pacific time zones — questioned why the bill favored daylight time over standard time.
“This is a question I’m hearing at home a lot,” Agar said.
Driskill noted that surrounding states have been favoring a switch to daylight time and Laursen has said Wyomingites are more used to daylight saving time, which is currently in place for about eight months out of the year. Meanwhile, backers of standard time often point out that the earlier sunrise helps ensure school days begin in daylight.
Driskill said he personally doesn’t care whether Wyoming chooses daylight saving or standard time, as his only preference is that “we stay the same time year-round.”
The Senate took up the bill on March 9 — the Monday after the time “sprung forward” — but someone apparently forgot to reset the clock in the chamber.
“If you look up here today, you saw what happens when you don’t pay attention to daylight savings time: we move backwards and you have some problems,” Driskill said, quipping, “we almost didn’t get lunch because of it.”
The Senate passed an amended version of the bill on a 17-11 vote, with the House adopting that version by a 45-13 margin.
Local Reps. David Northrup, R-Powell, and Sandy Newsome, R-Cody, and Coe voted aye on the final version of the legislation, while Rep. Jamie Flitner, R-Greybull, and Sen. R.J. Kost, R-Powell, opposed it.
