FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
Contact: Kimberly Riddle
Tel.: (202)
366-5580
DOT 26-01
Daylight
Time Begins Sunday, April 1, For Most Americans
Most of the nation will return to daylight saving time at 2 a.m. Sunday, April 1, when clocks will be set ahead one hour. The change will provide an additional hour of daylight in the evening.
Under law, daylight saving time is observed from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. This fall, the nation will return to standard time starting Sunday, Oct. 28.
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.
U.S.
Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta reminds Americans to change the
batteries in their smoke detectors when they change the time on their clocks.
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 and American Samoa.
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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