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Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Indiana Law - What Time is it in Indiana?

An Indianapolis Star/Eyewitness News 13 Poll of 704 Indiana residents in January "found that 58 percent of Hoosiers think the entire state should be on the same time, compared with 38 percent who are satisfied with the current arrangement," according to this story reported 1/25/04 in the Indianapolis Star. More from the story:

One of the most complicated questions in Indiana is also one of the simplest: What time is it? To answer that you need a clock -- and sometimes a map -- to navigate the state's odd patchwork of time zones.

Most of the state is in the Eastern time zone all year. Some northwest and southwest counties near Illinois are in the Central zone. Some southeastern counties are in the Eastern time zone -- but observe daylight-saving time, unlike most of the state. * * *

OK, so we should all be on the same time -- but whose time?

The poll found that 48 percent of Hoosiers prefer the Central time zone, with its orientation to Chicago. And 40 percent prefer Eastern, or New York time. Twelve percent are not sure.

The greatest support for Central time, 66 percent, was in northwest Indiana near Chicago. Only 20 percent of those respondents favored Eastern time.

The time zone preference was about evenly split in the rest of the state except for southern Indiana, which showed a 48 percent to 42 percent preference for Central time over Eastern.

The Star story also describes that the Indiana time situation is even more complicated than it seems:
So for now, Indianapolis and most of the state, 77 counties, observe Eastern Standard Time all year. Five counties in the northwest near Chicago and five counties in the southwest around Evansville remain on Central time.

The time question is more complicated in southeast Indiana. Five counties near Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati are officially on Eastern Standard Time all year. But in practice those southeastern counties observe daylight-saving time along with their neighbors in Kentucky and Ohio.

Here is a website devoted to daylight saving time. Re the evolution of daylight savings time in the United States, the site reports:
In the early 1960's, observance of Daylight Saving Time was quite inconsistent, with a hodgepodge of time observances, and no agreement when to change clocks. The Interstate Commerce Commission, the nation's timekeeper, was immobilized, and the matter remained deadlocked - until 1961. Many business interests were supportive of standardization, although it became a bitter fight between the indoor and outdoor theater industries. The farmers, however, were opposed to such uniformity. State and local governments were a mixed bag, depending on local conditions.

Efforts at standardization were encouraged by a transportation industry organization, the Committee for Time Uniformity. They surveyed the entire nation, through telephone operators, as to local time observances, and found the situation was quite confusing. * * *

By 1966, some 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time based on their own local laws and customs. Congress decided to step in to end the confusion and establish one pattern across the country. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) [see law] which was signed into Public Law 89-387 on 12 April 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any State that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a State law.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established a system of uniform (within each time zone) Daylight Saving Time throughout the U.S. and its possessions, exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time.

In 1972, Congress revised the law to provide that, if a State was in two or more time zones, the State could exempt the part of the State that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the State in a different time zone would observe Daylight Saving Time. The Federal law was amended in 1986 to begin Daylight Saving Time on the first Sunday in April.

The site devotes half-a-page here to the Indiana time situation.

Indiana's statute exempting the State from daylight savings time is found at IC 1-1-8.1. It also provides that: "In the event that the Congress of the United States or the Department of Transportation should permit any state which is divided by a time zone line to exempt less than a whole state from the observance of advanced or Daylight Savings Time, then in such event this chapter shall not apply to that portion of the State of Indiana that is in the Central Time Zone."

A treasure trove of information on the law of time in the United States, titled "24/7: A Resource Guide to the Law of Time Standards," is found here at the excellent legal research site, LLRX.com. Supplementing this is a paper prepared by Bob Rudolph of the Indiana Legislative Services Agency titled "Indiana Daylight Saving Time and Time Zone History."

What about change in Indiana? An article dated 1/24/04 in the Munster Times explains why change may be difficult:

Currently, five Northwest Indiana counties and five southwestern counties stay on Central zone time all year, five southeastern counties remain on Eastern time, and 77 counties do not follow daylight savings time. The result is that most of the state switches time zones rather than clocks twice a year, and many people can't figure out what time it is in Indiana.

[Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville] thinks the solution is simple: The whole state should follow daylight savings time -- in the Central zone. But some other interests in the state, especially an Indianapolis business group and suburbs of Louisville, want Indiana to follow Eastern daylight time.

Northwest Indiana lawmakers won't let the region become separated from Chicago, however, because of the commuters that daily cross state lines for work and play. So this and every year, Dobis files his bill to follow daylight savings time -- and nothing happens. On purpose.

"That bill is going nowhere," Dobis said this week. "But if you know the rules of the game, you can play within them." Dobis' solution works because no one else can pass a bill, or amend the daylight savings change into another bill, as long as his bill on the same topic is pending. The blocking strategy works so well, it has forced critics to throw in the towel.

The Daylight Savings Coalition disbanded in August because House members like Dobis kept stifling their effort, said Terri Pizzano, its former director. The group's Web site, www.hoosierdaylight.com [no longer working], said businesses lose piles of money from missed meetings and phone calls stemming from the time confusion. * * *

Dobis said maintaining the status quo is better than allowing others to put most of, or eventually, the whole, state in Eastern time all year. His ultimate goal is to negotiate the whole state into uniform Central daylight time, he said. "What do we have in common with New York?" Dobis said. "The Chicago market is 150 miles from Indianapolis."

Rep. Dobis' bill this year is numbered HB 1060; it is a one line bill that would repeal IC 1-1-8.1. The bill is still in first house committee.

Finally, the Terre Haute Tribune Star reported here yesterday that Lt. Gov. Kathy Davis, speaking Monday to members of the Greater Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce during its annual Groundhog Economic Forecast breakfast at ISU's Hulman Memorial Student Union, said:

Indiana's time zone is a key factor that Davis said must be changed to improve the state's business environment.

Davis referred to an Indianapolis trucking executive who said his company created 200 jobs last year, but none in Indiana. Davis said she contacted the company to find out why.

"Indiana needs to be on central time. [The company official] said that a transportation company cannot compete in Indiana if it is five hours to Detroit part of the year and six hours to Detroit the rest of the year, where Indiana is the only state where the [trucking] schedules need to be reprinted," Davis said.

The company official said "that last year the time change cost his company $250,000 correcting the errors that were made in the transition," Davis said.

"Certainly over the years the confusion that our lack of changing time creates with those who make a judgment about us has shown that not changing our time is more costly than we can afford," Davis said.

Terre Haute's WTWO 2 contains a similar report of the Lt. Gov's position.

[Update] The rtv6 Evening News is reporting here that: "Indiana Rep. Julia Carson is asking the federal government to investigate whether the state is losing money by not adopting daylight-saving time. Carson asked Congress' General Accounting Office to look into the economic costs of Indiana's time zones."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 4, 2004 08:55 AM
Posted to Indiana Law