FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DOT 96-02
Monday, October 21, 2001
Contact: Bill Mosley
Tel.: (202)
366-5571
Daylight
Saving Time Ends Sunday, Oct. 27,
For Most Americans
Secretary Mineta Reminds Americans to Change Smoke
Detector Batteries
Most of the nation will return to standard time at 2 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, when
clocks will be set back one hour. The
change will provide an additional hour of daylight in the morning.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta also reminds Americans to change the batteries in their smoke detectors when they change the time on their clocks.
“When changing your clocks, remember the old saying: ‘Spring ahead, fall back,’” Secretary Mineta said. “It’s also a good time to make sure your smoke alarm has a new battery.”
Under law, daylight saving time is observed from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. Next spring, the nation will return to daylight saving time starting Sunday, April 6.
The federal law does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe daylight time, it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law.
In those parts of the country that do not observe daylight time, no resetting of clocks is required. Those states and territories include Arizona, Hawaii, the part of Indiana located in the Eastern time zone, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas. In December 2000, Congress established the ninth U.S. time zone, the Chamorro Time Zone, for Guam and the Northern Marianas west of the International Date Line. The zone, whose time is 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, is named for the indigenous people of the region.
Daylight saving time is a change in the standard time of each time zone. Time zones were first used in the United States in 1883 by the railroads to standardize their schedules. In 1918, Congress made the railroad zones official under federal law and assigned the responsibility for any changes that might be needed to the Interstate Commerce Commission, then the only federal regulatory agency. In the Uniform Time Act of 1966, Congress established uniform dates for daylight saving time and transferred responsibility for the time laws to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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