The following editorial first appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News:
Legislation to exempt Alaska from Daylight Saving Time is on the move in Alaska’s Legislature again.
In 2015, the Senate voted 16-4 to approve Senate Bill 6, which would keep the state on Alaska Standard (winter) Time year-round and petition the U.S. Department of Transportation to consider putting all or part of Alaska in the Pacific Standard Time zone.
The Alaska House of Representatives, however, didn’t follow the Senate’s action. After the Senate vote, SB6 got referred to the House finance and state affairs committees, where the bill remained stuck — until last week.
On Thursday, the House State Affairs Committee held a hearing on SB 6 and then moved a revised bill out of committee.
The revised bill would petition that all of Alaska — deleting the “part of” provision — be placed in the Pacific Standard Time zone. It would require that the petition be successful before the daylight saving exemption could take effect. In other words, Alaska would have to be placed on Pacific time first, then it would be exempted from daylight saving time.
The next stop for SB 6 is the House Finance Committee. Who knows? Legislation moves in strange ways, especially during the last moments of a legislative session, and this bill could be destined for a vote on the House floor.
If it does, the House should vote it down.
First, the Senate-approved version would exempt Alaska from Daylight Saving Time and petition the feds to move Alaska to Pacific time. If the House approves its current version with petition first and exemption second, who knows what a Senate-House conference committee will come up with as a final version.
Second, the current House version hasn’t been around long enough for meaningful analysis or input from the wide range of Alaskans that opposed the original SB 6. Seeking to change the entire state of Alaska to Pacific time is a huge move, one deserving more scrutiny than a last-minute slide through the Legislature.
The Senate-approved SB 6 prompted opposition from the statewide chamber of commerce and travel industry groups, and especially the Greater Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce and the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau.
Exempting Alaska from Daylight Saving Time would keep the state on winter time throughout the visitor season.
The effects would include one less hour of evening daylight, which many businesses indicated would make their operations more difficult.
“This will mean the loss of crucial daylight hours for our operation and others,” wrote Marc Cappelletti of Lindblad Expeditions, a small ship cruise company that has an alliance with National Geographic. “The effects can be very immediate, like a reduction in runs for air taxis and tours, or, more global, like a strain (on) business relations between Alaskan companies and partners in other time zones.”
Many businesses noted that the additional hour time difference between Alaska and the Lower 48 — there would be a 5-hour spread between Alaska and the East Coast — would cause substantial issues.
“SB 6 would create unnecessary new hurdles for Alaska businesses dealing in financial markets, global trade, logistics and tourism,” wrote the Alaska Chamber of Commerce in opposition to SB 6. “The concern about throwing Alaska business out of synch with financial markets is real and would impact banks, traders, investors and other members of the Alaska finance community.”
Ketchikan, especially, could be hit hard.
Most cruise ships visiting Ketchikan are southbound vessels. Given the long distance between Ketchikan and the seasonal home ports in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, those ships already spend much less time in Ketchikan than they do in ports like Juneau. If they also had to make up an hour to resync with Pacific time schedules, those ships likely would be leaving Ketchikan an hour earlier than they already do.
“The earlier departures of those southbound ships would equal the loss of 30 days in port and a conservative value of $8,892,000 in lost spending,” according to a Ketchikan Visitors Bureau resolution opposing SB6.
That’s port time, spending and revenues that Ketchikan simply cannot afford to lose.
It’s unfortunate that any version of legislation that could end Daylight Saving Time in Alaska is moving at this point in the legislative session. The Legislature would be prudent to shelve SB 6 now and avoid risking severe damage to vital parts of Alaska’s economy.
