standard time

[Laser Man]

DST was originally done to provide an extra hour of daylight for workers.  Since we would have more working hours of daylight, we'd save on energy (yes, we use more electrical energy in the afternoon / evening than in the morning and we use more energy in the summer than the winter because it takes much more energy to provide air-conditioning than heating).  Whether energy is actually saved is a subject of debate. 

Just remember that timekeeping is a man-made convention.  U.S. time zones were instituted by the railroads so train schedules could be synchronized.  During the French Revolution, the French tried to use ten hour days...some clocks were made that displayed the time based on 10 hours but had a hidden compartment that showed the time based on the normal 12 hours.

DST, like any man-made convention, is something to get used to.

[Laser Man]

By the way, the U.S. has more months of Daylight Savings Time than Standard Time.  So which one is really the "standard"?  Think about that one!

[mrzed]

Neither does Hawai'i.

And parts of Indiana (Chicago land parts stick with Illinois. The rest of the state stays on standard time).

[Razor X]

By the way, the U.S. has more months of Daylight Savings Time than Standard Time.  So which one is really the "standard"?  Think about that one!

Exactly.  The last time they extended DST I thought that they might as well just leave us on DST all year round.

[mrzed]

Well, I do appreciate light in the morning. I'm a morning person.  My preference would be to get up when the sun comes up.

I have a 'Sun Rizer' device that creates an artificial sun rise in the bedroom for the mornings when I have to get up earlier than the sun does.  Works great for me. No audible alarms. The light just comes on gradually. That's been my alarm clock for perhaps 15-20 years!

I also deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  SAD. The shorter days of winter are more difficult to deal with. I have to be careful to get enough sunlight, the brighter/longer, the better. I have high intensity lamps at home and work for cloudy winter days and when I can't get out enough.  It's no fun, but the joy is that February/March is coming and then there is 9 months of enough light to feel right.

[theman]

Well, I do appreciate light in the morning. I'm a morning person.  My preference would be to get up when the sun comes up.

I have a 'Sun Rizer' device that creates an artificial sun rise in the bedroom for the mornings when I have to get up earlier than the sun does.  Works great for me. No audible alarms. The light just comes on gradually. That's been my alarm clock for perhaps 15-20 years!

I also deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  SAD. The shorter days of winter are more difficult to deal with. I have to be careful to get enough sunlight, the brighter/longer, the better. I have high intensity lamps at home and work for cloudy winter days and when I can't get out enough.  It's no fun, but the joy is that February/March is coming and then there is 9 months of enough light to feel right.

mrzed, I saw one of these "Sun Rizer" items the tv show I loved Northern Exposer , this guy was so depressed so the doc. told him to use one of these .  But like only 20 min a day.  Well he started feeling so good he OD'ed on it boy was he wired .  People up in Alaska where this tv show was about but it really was made in Washington.  Sure wish it was on yet.   

[Laser Man]

The extension of DST was passed by Congress and signed by George W. Bush during a time of rising energy prices.  Unfortunately, it was based on information from 1973 and cost a fortune to implement (every computer system had to be adjusted).  After two years, Congress was supposed to authorize a study to see if we actually saved energy.  If not, we would go back to the old schedule for DST.  To my knowledge, this study has never been funded / done!

[Frontier Guy]

DST is quite an interesting (and historical) quagmire to wade through. (the following excerpted from Wikipedia)

By the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time (DST) was extended in the United States beginning in 2007. As of that year, DST began on the second Sunday of March and ended on the first Sunday of November. These changes result in a DST period that is four weeks longer than in previous years. In 2008 daylight saving time ended at 2:00 a.m. (0200) on Sunday, November 2, and in 2009 it began at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 8. Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi and Michigan Representative Fred Upton advocated the extension from October into November especially to allow children to go trick-or-treating in more daylight. [I recall at the time there was massive lobbying by the candy manufacturers for this change.]

And, generally don't count on wherever you are going/calling in the U.S. to be on "the" standard time of the moment:

Alaska
Alaska observes DST although there had been a recent statewide move to abolish it. As of July 24, 2006, Alaska's lieutenant governor Loren Leman approved a petition to collect signatures to put the initiative measure on the ballot by 2008. Due to its high latitude, Alaska has nearly round-the-clock daylight during summer and DST is seen by some Alaskans as unnecessary and a nuisance.
Another issue is that the Alaskan mainland's single time zone is too wide and there is a large disparity between civil time and solar time, with solar noon occurring as late as 3:00 p.m. (1500) by the clock in places like Nome. Others argue that ending daylight saving time will place Alaska as much as five hours from Eastern Daylight Time, making coordination of travel and phone conversations more difficult.

Arizona
Arizona observed DST in 1967 under the Uniform Time Act because the state legislature did not enact an exemption statute that year. In March 1968 the DST exemption statute was enacted and the state of Arizona has not observed DST since 1967. This is in large part due to energy conservation: Phoenix and Tucson are among the hottest US metropolitan areas during the summer, resulting in more power usage from air conditioning units and evaporative coolers in homes and businesses. An extra hour of sunlight while people are active would cause people to run their cooling systems longer, thereby using more energy. Local residents remember the summer of 1967, the one year that DST was observed. The State Senate Majority leader at the time owned drive-in movie theaters and was nearly bankrupted by the practice. Movies could not start until 10:00 p.m. (2200) at the height of summer, well past normal hours for most Arizona residents. There has never been any serious consideration of reversing the exemption.

Reservations in Arizona
The Hopi Reservation, which is entirely within the borders of the state of Arizona, does not observe DST. The Navajo Indian Reservation, which extends into two adjacent states, does observe daylight saving time.

Colorado
Colorado Springs Gazette columnist Ralph Routon wrote a series of columns in 1999 promoting placing all of Colorado on year-round DST in order to save state residents the "aggravation of resetting their clocks every six months." The idea gathered popular support in Colorado Springs and the attention of the state's larger newspapers, but when state Senator MaryAnne Tebedo attempted to present the idea to the state legislature, her research uncovered federal laws forbidding the state-initiated extension of daylight saving time. Still determined to relieve Coloradans of the need to change their clocks, Tebedo introduced the only bill legally permitted to her: a proposal to exempt the state of Colorado from DST. The bill did not advance from committee during the 2000 legislative session.

Florida
Daylight time is less useful in Florida than in many other states because of its southern location. There is opposition to DST in Florida. State senator Bill Posey introduced a bill in March 2008 to abolish daylight time in the state and keep Florida on year-round standard time. Because Florida is in two time zones, the Florida legislature has the option of returning all or part of the state to standard time along time zone boundaries.

Hawaii
Because of Hawaii's tropical latitude, there is not a large variation in daylight length between winter and summer. Advancing the clock in Hawaii would make sunrise times close to 7:00 a.m. even in June. Most of the inhabited islands are located close to the west end of the Hawaii-Aleutian time zone, but Oahu, Kauai and Niihau are located more than 7 degrees west of the Hawaii-Aleutian time zone's meridian and should, theoretically, be located in the next time zone to the west. (Until about 1946 Hawaiian standard time was based on longitude 157.5 deg west rather than 150 deg.)
Hawaii did experiment with DST for three weeks between April 30, 1933 and May 21, 1933; there is no known official record as to why it was implemented or discontinued. Hawaii has never observed daylight saving time under the Uniform Time Act, having opted out of the Act's provisions in 1967.

Indiana
See also: Time in Indiana
From 1970 until 2006, most of Indiana in the Eastern Time Zone did not observe daylight saving time, but the entire state started to do so in April 2006 after eight counties in western Indiana were shifted from the Eastern Time Zone to the Central Time Zone. One goal for observing DST was to get more Indiana counties observing the same timezone; formerly, 77 counties observed EST, 5 observed EST/EDT (the EDT usage being unofficial only), and 10 observed CST/CDT. At present (2012) Indiana has 12 counties observing Central Daylight Time while the remaining 80 counties observe Eastern Daylight Time.

Michigan
In 1967 the Michigan Legislature adopted a statute, Act 6 of the Public Acts of 1967, exempting the state from the observance of DST. The exemption statute was suspended on June 14, 1967, however, when the referendum was invoked. From June 14, 1967, until the last Sunday in October, 1967, Michigan observed DST, and did so in 1968 as well. The exemption statute was submitted to the voters at the General Election held in November 1968, and, in a close vote, the exemption statute was sustained. As a result, Michigan did not observe DST in 1969, 1970, 1971, or 1972. In November 1972, an initiative measure, repealing the exemption statute, was approved by the voters. Michigan again observed DST in 1973, and has continued to do so since then.

Nevada
In 2005, Nevada Assembly Bill 18 would have exempted Nevada from daylight saving time. The bill's author, Assemblyman Bob McCleary, D-North Las Vegas, argued that because of southern Nevada's desert climate, it would reduce power usage during the peak summer months by reducing the time that people would operate their home air conditioners. The result of not observing DST, however, would place the state in an odd time configuration relative to neighboring states. Because it is on the eastern edge of the Pacific Time Zone, Nevada (PST) would be two hours behind Utah (MDT), its eastern neighbor, and one hour behind California (PDT), its western neighbor. In the summer, it would therefore be the same time in Nevada (PST) as it would be in the majority of Alaska (AKDT). The bill died without a vote.