Lawmaker says time's up for Daylight Savings

SANTA FE (KRQE) - Daylight savings time kicks in Sunday morning as a New Mexico state senator tries to kick the time-changing scheme out altogether.

At 2 a.m. Sunday New Mexico and 47 other states will spring forward advancing clocks by one hour.

Daylight Savings Time has been federal law since the 1960s.  Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, thinks that's long enough.

Only Arizona and Hawaii are exempt from Daylight Savings Time, which means Arizona flips between the Pacific and Mountain zones putting it on Los Angeles time about half the year and Albuquerque time the other half..

New Mexico would share the same time as California and the rest of the Pacific zone if the state got rid of daylight savings time which was originally created to save energy during the summer.

In the evenings, lights wouldn't have to stay on as long because the sun would be out longer.

But Pirtle says saving energy is why getting rid of Daylight Savings Time makes sense.

"With air conditioning now, where we have three hours of daylight after we get off of work, if it got darker sooner, we would save energy by not having to run our air conditioners longer," Pirtle said.

The way the bill is currently written Daylight Savings Time would kick in over the summer when the law would take affect.

That means we would move forward one hour this Sunday and then back one hour on July 1.

After that Daylight Savings Time would be gone for good.

Still, DST haters shouldn't get their hopes up.  The bill is still in the very early stages of the legislative process and has yet to pass any committee.

The Legislature has 10 days left in its 60-day session.