So long, daylight saving time. 

It’s that time again once a year when clocks are set back an hour, and everyone “falls back.” 

Daylight saving time officially ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 5 and returns March 10, 2024, when the vast majority of Americans will then “spring forward” as clocks are set an hour later. 

For many, the end of daylight saving time offers an extra hour of sleep, or it means a little more time to get ready for church Sunday or to make it to brunch before a favorite buffet is taken down. 

For most office workers, though, who are on the job during daytime normal business hours, moving from daylight saving time to standard time means they are heading into a few months of seldom leaving work before it’s pitch dark. This culminates with the winter solstice on Dec. 21, which marks the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Daylight saving time in the U.S. goes back as early as 1918, with the current federal policy, The Uniform Time Act, in effect since 1966.

Federal law allows a state to exempt itself from observing daylight saving time, upon action by the state legislature, but does not allow the permanent observance of daylight saving time.

Hawaii and most of Arizona observe permanent standard time, so no daylight saving time and no rolling clocks back and forth there.

There have been efforts in recent years to make daylight saving time permanent in North Idaho and other states. 

Here in North Idaho, it makes sense for the region to be in the same time zone as Spokane, so legislators in 2020 voted to make daylight saving time permanent in North Idaho if Washington makes it permanent.

The Legislature also voted in 2020 to exempt Idaho from daylight saving time provisions of federal law.

At the national level, some members of Congress have pushed to make daylight saving time permanent, but efforts to pass federal legislation in 2022 and 2023 have failed.