Daylight savings time will end on November 2 at 2 a.m., but it may be the last time some parts of the nation "fall back."
Since 2007, the time shift has begun on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. Traditionally, the only states not participating were Hawaii and Arizona, but Utah lawmakers are also pushing to drop the practice.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a study has found that a majority of Utahns would like to get rid of daylight savings time — 67 percent to be exact.
"Convenience really stood out" as a reason for supporting year-round Mountain Standard Time, said GOED's Michael O'Malley. "People don’t want to move their clocks forward, backward . . . They just want to set them and leave them."
Other reasons beyond the convenience factor included concerns about the disruptive time change's effect on sleep and public health as well as kids walking to school in the dark.
The study was commissioned by the Government Operations Interim Committee following the instruction of a state legislative bill authored last year by Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland. It collected more than 27,000 responses that totaled 574,000 words combined, roughly the same length of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" novel.
Rep. Lee Perry, R-Perry, and Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, said Wednesday that they are now looking into legislation that could end it directly, or put the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.
According to The Washington Post, some groups have come out in opposition to a change, including recreational and tourism outfits like Ski Utah, the Utah Tourism Industry Association, and Farmington, Utah, amusement park Lagoon.
"The net result would basically be one less hour of significant operation and revenue per day," Dick Andrew, Lagoon’s vice president of marketing, said in a letter. "We believe this would also be the case for the travel and tourism industry across the state."
Somewhat surprisingly, the 70 percent of members from the Utah Farm Bureau’s Association supported dropping the time shift.
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are also actively exploring ditching daylight savings time.