A new bill that could end the twice-yearly clock changes has passed the Oregon Senate.

Senators approved Senate Bill 1038 on Tuesday. If enacted, the bill would allow Oregon to choose either year-round daylight saving time or standard time — with a catch.

The proposed law would leave the fate of Oregon’s clocks to its neighbors. Under the bill, Oregon would adopt a year-round time only if both California and Washington make the same decision within the next 10 years. If Washington and California opt for standard time year-round, so would Oregon.

“This bill gives us the highest chance of ditching the switch,” state Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, told Oregon Public Broadcasting, a news partner with this newspaper, “but which switch to ditch is going to be up to entities outside of our control.”

Thatcher has led a yearslong effort to end the practice of changing clocks, and lawmakers have tried many times to end the practice, without success. Previous attempts to establish a permanent time in Oregon would have put the state out of sync with its West Coast neighbors — a non-starter for some in Salem who worry about the complications of having different time zones across the three states. The new approach would ensure that all three remain aligned.

Both daylight saving time and standard time have their advantages and drawbacks. Supporters of daylight saving time say they enjoy more daylight at the end of the workday and argue that it benefits mental health and the economy by encouraging outdoor activity and socializing after work or school. Advocates for standard time contend that it more closely aligns with the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, though it would mean sunrises before 4:30 a.m. during parts of the year.

Currently, the U.S. spends about 65 percent of the year in daylight saving time, from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November.

The practice of adjusting clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall dates back to the 1890s but was not formally adopted in Oregon until 1962, when voters approved Measure 6, the Oregon Daylight Saving Time Act.

The law mandated daylight saving time across the Pacific Time Zone, which covers nearly all of Oregon, except for sparsely populated Malheur County, which remains in the Mountain Time Zone due to its proximity to Boise, Idaho.

Switching clocks twice a year has become increasingly unpopular in the United States. A study by Pemco Insurance Northwest found that only 21 percent of Pacific Northwest residents believe the tradition is worth keeping.

Not all U.S. states and territories observe daylight saving time. Arizona and Hawaii do not participate, nor do Puerto Rico, American Samoa, or the Virgin Islands.
The bill now moves to the Oregon House of Representatives.