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1. Background

The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 amends the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by changing the start and end dates of daylight saving time starting in 2007 as noted previously.

The Uniform Time Act codified daylight saving time (DST) observance within the U.S. Prior to the act, each state set its own policy for DST observance, and in some cases, which parts of the state would be affected. The Act originally set the start of DST to be the last Sunday in April, and was amended in 1986 (effective in 1987) to be the first Sunday in April.

Whereas this is the first modification to the DST rules in the United States in 20 years, this is not the only recent change to DST around the globe. Western Australia, Brazil, and the state of Indiana, among others, also made their own adjustments to DST start and/or end dates within the last year or so. The things that distinguish the EPACT 2005 changes from the other changes are:

  1. The aforementioned more regional DST changes were problematic and difficult in a number of ways, but the impact of these difficulties was relatively small globally.

  2. The scope of the EPACT 2005 change is substantially larger, affecting virtually the entire United States, the third most populous nation in the world, as well Canada and Bermuda.

  3. The role that the United States plays in international commerce and IT development makes this change very significant across the globe.

  4. In the words of Thomas Friedman, “the world is flat”, with geo-political borders becoming less relevant with respect to trade and commerce. Virtually, everyone is doing business with everyone else. Agreeing globally on dates and times is now essential.

  5. Mobile devices are pervasive and indispensable today, as are enterprise and web-based calendaring systems connecting people across time zones, and organizational and political boundaries Twenty years ago, when the Uniform Time Act was amended in 1986, these things didn’t exist or they were an inconsequential novelty. Clearly that is not the case today.

  6. Computer systems, networks, applications and other electronic devices used by banks, the government and industry are dependent on correct date and time information and are far more widely used than they were when the last change was made in 1986.

  7. EPACT 2005 requires the Department of Energy to report to the US Congress on the impact of the DST change on energy usage and/or conservation by the end of 2007. Congress may revert back to the 1986 DST dates if they choose. There is conflicting research as to whether daylight saving results in a net energy saving.

CalConnect’s October 2005 “Report on TIMEZONE Questionnaire Results, observed “…​ a number of products convert local time information with a supplied timezone into UTC (the ‘standard’ time reference) as a simplification. As a result of this, timezone information is effectively lost. Such products will need to determine how to do any adjustment of the UTC times based on the proposed DST changes.”

CalConnect’s February 2007 publication, “Extended Daylight Saving Time — Review and Considerations” predicted “The impact of the DST changes should be significantly smaller than Year 2000 (Y2K) but is still a concern for those involved in preparing for the change. Many systems will be corrected simply by applying automatic updates from the system vendor in advance of the March 11th deadline. The result of having out of date rules is also smaller, with systems being off by an hour instead of a hundred years (or failing completely). On the other hand, there may be significant impact on computer support organizations, especially in cases where meetings in a calendar system need to be corrected manually.”