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Should Utah Abandon Daylight Saving Time?

Brian Grimmett
The sun sets over Utah in June of 2014

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development, or GOED, is collecting data about how Utahns feel about Daylight Saving Time.

More than 30 people gathered at the Clark Planetarium in downtown Salt Lake City to voice their opinion about Daylight Saving Time.  A majority of those attending said they’d prefer to move to standard time year round like Arizona. Many who made comments expressed similar ideas to those of Provo resident Ed Bernsen.

“For years this has bothered me a great deal," he says. "I say for health and for other reasons we need to leave the time alone. There are too many accidents. There are too many health concerns.”

Dick Andrew is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Lagoon Amusement Park. He says moving away from Daylight Saving Time would be a major blow to the entire tourism and entertainment industry.

“We cherish that extra hour of daylight in the summer. It is very important to us," Andrew says. "Saves lots and lots of money. Much less power is used. Families are able to have that time to be together.”

GOED has also been taking comments from people online. As of July 10th they had received almost 20 thousand responses with 70% of those saying they want to align with Arizona. Legislators have tried and failed to make this change many times over the years. Republican State Rep. Ronda Menlove says she believes the information gathered by GOED could change that.

“You know, I think it will fuel the discussion. I believe it will. I believe my colleagues, I’ve learned, they like data and they listen to people.”

GOED will be collecting responses from the public online until August 15. 

Credit Governor's Office of Economic Development
A comparison of DST and MST on when the sun would rise in Utah

When Would the Sun Rise?

Utah is looking into three different options. The first, changes nothing. The state would still move an hour back in the fall and an hour forward in the spring. 

The second option would be to join Arizona and move to Mountain Standard Time year round.

The third option would be to move to Daylight Saving Time year round.

Below lists the possible sunrise and sunset times for each scenario based on selected dates from the summer and the winter.

DST = Daylight Saving Time (Utah is on this schedule during the summer)

MST = Mountain Standard Time (Utah is on this schedule during the winter)

July 4, 2015
DST Sunrise 6:01 a.m.
MST Sunrise 5:01 a.m.

DST Sunset 9:02 p.m.
MST Sunset 8:02 p.m.

December 25, 2015
DST Sunrise 8:50 a.m.
MST Sunrise 7:50 a.m.

DST Sunset 6:05 p.m.
MST Sunset 5:05 p.m.

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