Farmers and Ranchers Urge Lawmakers to “Lock the Clock” on Daylight Saving Time

Oklahoma City -(KOKH) –

Daylight saving time was established federally in the 1960s to reduce electricity usage.

The fallback and spring-ahead time changes are being challenged by politicians in Oklahoma and across the country.

While many woke up Sunday morning feeling well-rested after an extra hour of sleep, Dr. Gitanjali Pai, the Chief Medical Officer at the state’s health department said any change in sleep habits is not good for your health.

“While the fallback phenomenon in November can result potentially into an extra hour of sleep, our internal clocks can still have difficulty adjusting very rapidly to this change,” Dr. Pai said. “In fact, there are increased health risks such as depression, obesity, heart attacks, cancer, and even car accidents that have been associated with this twice a year desynchronization of our body clocks.”

Dr. Pai said our sleep cycles are synched with daylight, and any change in daylight will make a difference.

“Sleep experts have seen disturbing trends that can occur during this transition, even though adjusting the time by just one hour may not seem like too drastic of a change,” Dr. Pai said.

One group of people invested in that one hour is farmers and ranchers.

Scott Blubaugh, the President of the American Farmers and Ranchers Cooperative, said he’s in favor of locking the clock on daylight saving time.

“To us, it makes more sense if we can add that hour to the end of the day than early in the beginning of the day,” Blubaugh. “And really you’re just talking about the winter months would be the change, about four months in the wintertime.”

Blubaugh said the majority of Oklahoma farmers also have day jobs in addition to farming.

“They work all day at the job in town and then come home,” Blubaugh said. “In the wintertime, they’re breaking the ice, feeding cattle, trying to assist their cattle and caving and that sort of thing all in the dark.”

State Sen. Blake Stephens, (R)-Tahlequah, is introducing a bill to lock the clock on daylight saving time in Oklahoma.

Federally, Sen. James Lankford, (R)-OK, cosponsored the Sunshine Protection Act, aiming to make daylight saving time permanent.

Some argue that instead of freezing time on daylight saving time, we should instead stay in standard-time year-round.