During Thursday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) asked panelists about the benefits of eliminating daylight saving time in New Mexico.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. Dr. Johnson, thank you for joining us today. I saw that the American Academy of Neurology sent the committee a letter encouraging us to consider that standard time, not daylight savings time is the best to align with our body's natural clocks.
00:20Many people still sleep through the morning light or after the early sunrises. Does that mean that light is being wasted if they are not using it awake?
00:32So light helps us get up. Most people will wake up naturally after light. Now some people, my teenagers, could easily sleep until noon and that makes them actually more likely shift their schedules even later.
00:49So when you miss morning light, which is needed to reset your rhythm, or if you get too much light in the evenings, you drift later and have even more trouble getting up in the morning.
01:00And so that's why if we actually set it so the sun is rising earlier in the morning, more people will actually naturally, because their circadian rhythms, start saying get up on time rather than get up so late,
01:13will be able to be ready for the day, be able to be ready for the day, be able to have their circadian rhythms, help their health, help their metabolism, which is going to be good for heart disease, stroke risk, dementia risk, all these other sort of chronic health problems.
01:29I appreciate that. To all the panelists, what does this mean for New Mexico?
01:33New Mexico, for our farmers, school children, and teenagers, the elderly workers, and tourism and recreation.
01:40What would permanent daylight standard time of permanent standard time mean for these communities?
01:50One or the other, I apologize, not of war.
01:53Mr. Yates?
01:55Senator, thank you for the question.
01:57New Mexico is another real leader in early movements to try to lock the clock.
02:03Senator Cliff Pirtle, State Senator Cliff Pirtle, worked on this.
02:07I worked with him closely for a long time.
02:10It was, the effects on everybody in New Mexico of the clock changing is the same, which is, it's very disruptive.
02:18It's not disruptive equally for everybody, but for a lot of people it is.
02:21A lot of, you know, all the things that we've cited, all the different health studies show that.
02:27The thing that I've been advocating today about the two-year implementation period would be especially helpful for New Mexico
02:34because you have a tricky little trade region where you abut West Texas, which is in the mountain time zone, and part of Mexico.
02:44And so there's a region where interstate commerce is directly affected.
02:49And so all of Mexico recently decided to lock the clock, except for the part that is attached to West Texas and New Mexico.
02:55And so these issues of commerce are complicated and do take a little while to work out.
03:00So that's the one thing I would say is that that sort of thing should be addressed carefully.
03:04Mr. Kerr?
03:04I would say that the golf courses in New Mexico, which enjoy mostly afternoon and evening light,
03:12all the great hiking that goes on in New Mexico, the rock climbing, the hot air ballooning,
03:16all of that would be seriously curbed if daylight saving time was removed.
03:24And that would be, I think, a detriment to the New Mexico economy and people's time and ability to get outside and enjoy what you have.
03:33You're suggesting that people hike and golf in the morning?
03:36No, they do all that in the afternoon.
03:39And if standard time was made permanent, they would feel forced to do it in the morning, but they have to go to school.
03:45They have to go to work.
03:46And I don't think they would be able to make that shift.
03:49Appreciate that.
03:50Dr. Johnson?
03:52Yeah, I would say, if anything, you know, you have a neighboring state, Arizona, that does very well on standard time
03:59and has shown that the golf industry can thrive, if anything, a lot of people say, and one of the reasons Arizona says they stayed on standard time
04:06is because it gets too hot later.
04:08So a lot of people do like to do exercise later, and that often is actually a better time for our health to get our exercise in.
04:15So if we can get people up so that they can be more active in the morning and get this exercise
04:20and enjoy all the wonderful things like hiking, which I know when I've gone to places like New Mexico, I do in the morning.
04:27You know, I think that we can still have all these activities on either time, but I think standard time is the healthier choice.
04:34Dr. Harkin?
04:37So our work was looking at fatality data nationally rather than by individual states, in part due to sample size.
04:45But if the patterns hold in New Mexico, just like they have in our research across the country,
04:51then we're going to see an offset between the number of motor vehicle occupant deaths that have risen slightly
04:59during the time change periods and pedestrian and bicyclist deaths that have decreased slightly during that same time period.
05:08And so the net effect is one of really no change when we look at road safety data alone.
05:14And so if you're trying to make this decision on the basis of just road safety,
05:19I don't think the results of our study are going to point you in one direction or the other.
05:24As a follow-up to that, Dr. Harkin, Dr. Johnson pointed to a study from a professor at Eastern New Mexico University,
05:32Jeff Gentry, who showed 20% higher car crashes in locations where sunrises and sunsets are later.
05:39Now, I understand your point that darkness is a key measure of accidents,
05:43but this data shows me that sleep effects are powerful indicators as well.
05:48How do you view the risk of sleep deprivation on accidents versus risks from darkness?
05:53So our study did not look specifically at that particular issue.
05:57I know other studies have.
05:59Methodologies differ.
06:00Most of the studies that have tried to look strictly at that small amount of time change before and after in the crashes
06:06concur that the real issue here is the amount of ambient light and the time of day when it occurs,
06:12that darkness is the real key,
06:14and you just need to make sure that you're providing good safety interventions to address issues of darkness.
06:20So whether that is improving technologies in the vehicle, such as headlights, automatic emergency braking,
06:26or whether it's you're putting in infrastructure measures that add more lighting,
06:30add more space for pedestrians and bicyclists to keep them separated from motorists,
06:34whatever you can do to reduce those conflicts in the darkness and improve awareness of other road users in the darkness will be beneficial,
06:44regardless of the time change.
06:46It sounds like you support my legislation to require technology be installed in vehicles to prevent impaired crashes.
06:52So I'll take that as well.
06:53We'll share that with my colleagues.
06:54Mr. Chairman, I have one more question for Mr. Yates on standard time versus daylight savings.
06:59I'll just admit it into the record.
07:00And just to note to the panelists, the reason I'm asking so much about sleep is, as my colleagues know,
07:05I suffered a stroke three years ago.
07:08I've learned a lot about the importance of sleep.
07:10I definitely lived my life burning the candle at both ends,
07:15and now I do my due diligence to embrace sleep hygiene and all the rest.
07:20And so that's bearing a lot into this conversation that I'm having with my constituents and others, Mr. Chairman.
07:25I very much appreciate this hearing.
07:27Thank you all for being here.