Daylight Saving Time Bill in North Dakota Amended to Trigger When Neighbor States Concur

(Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

(By: Ann Estvold, North Dakota Newspaper Association via the North Dakota Monitor) – Legislation to eliminate daylight saving time in North Dakota still has a flicker of hope in the state Senate.

House Bill 1259 would abolish the time change and have the state join Arizona, Hawaii and some U.S. territories as the only areas in the nation that do not observe daylight saving time, which is in effect from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday in November.

Rep. Roger Maki, R-Watford City, introduced an amendment during the bill’s hearing in the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee last week. The amendment would put the daylight saving ban into effect only if North Dakota’s neighboring states took the same step.

Supporters of the bill said that North Dakotans are more affected by daylight saving time as many of them live in the western part of the Central Time Zone. Most of North Dakota is in the Central time zone; the state’s southwestern corner observes Mountain time.