Mexico One Step Closer to End of Daylight Savings Time Peter Davies - MexicoNewsDaily.com
go to original September 29, 2022

The case for getting rid of daylight-saving time (Business Insider)

The energy committee of the lower house of Congress has approved a bill proposing the elimination of daylight saving time in most of the country, bringing the practice of changing clocks twice a year one step closer to obsolescence.

Sent to Congress by President López Obrador in July, the bill was supported by deputies with the ruling Morena party and its allies at a vote held Monday. A total of 22 energy committee members voted in favor of the proposal, 11 abstained and just one opposed it.

The bill – which proposes a new Time Zones Law – will now be considered by all 500 deputies, with debate and a vote slated to be held Wednesday. If it passes the Chamber of Deputies, the bill will face a vote in the Senate.

The proposal – which would allow northern border municipalities to continue to observe daylight saving time in order to stay in sync with the U.S. states they adjoin – only requires a simple majority to pass the federal legislature, meaning that it is likely to become law. With the support of its allies, Morena commands a majority in both the lower and upper houses.

Members of the energy committee who voted in favor of the elimination of daylight saving time argued that the savings generated by the time change have been minimal while the impact on people’s physical and mental health has been significant.

López Obrador, a longtime critic of daylight saving time – first introduced in Mexico in 1996 by then-president Ernesto Zedillo – said in June that a study completed by the Energy Ministry in conjunction with the Health Ministry and the Federal Electricity Commission concluded that daylight saving time generates savings of about 1 billion pesos (US $49.1 million) a year across Mexico.

“The conclusion is that the damage to health is greater than the importance of economic savings,” he said.

The United States is also considering doing away with twice-yearly time changes, but in contrast to Mexico, the proposal there is to make daylight saving time permanent, while the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario have also passed measures to move to permanent daylight saving time.

Read the rest at Mexico News Daily

Related: Mexico Is Expected to Permanently End Daylight Savings Time (PVDN)