DENVER Colorado would stay on year-round Daylight Saving Time under a bill a Senate committee passed unanimously Wednesday.
Despite the resounding vote for Senate Bill 22, it has little chance of passing, especially because time zones are set by federal law.
In fact, the sponsor, Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, slipped up and referred to his bill in the past tense when presenting it Wednesday.
What this bill would do was would keep us on Daylight Saving Time year round in the state of Colorado, Brophy told the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Brophy asked to have the bill heard this week, right after the time change.
Were you tired on Monday morning when you came into work? Are your kids schedules upset this morning? Isnt it crazy that we go through this ritual twice a year, every year? Brophy said.
Brophy got the idea from a conversation on his Facebook page last fall. He got at least 45 comments in favor of the idea of year-round daylight time before he stopped counting.
As a farmer and avid bicyclist, he said he prefers the extra hour of daylight instead of Standard Time, which makes for brighter mornings in the winter. In his Eastern Plains town, sundown is almost an hour earlier than in western Utah, at the other edge of the time zone, he said.
SB 22 now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Brophy said he has heard opposition from the owners of AM radio stations, who would lose an hours worth of national programming during winter mornings, when Colorado would be on a different clock than the rest of the country.
It could also require adjustments from airlines and the reprogramming of many computer clocks, he said.
A House committee has already killed House Bill 1067, which would have kept Colorado on year-round Standard Time.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
