BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (BRPROUD/KETK) –Louisiana has adopted daylight saving time year-round, with final approval pending on the federal level.

Representative Dodie Horton introduced HB132 which tackles the question of whether Louisiana should adopt daylight saving time year-round. 

HB132 passed the Louisiana House by a vote of 89-0 and the Louisiana Senate by a count of 28-7.

Gov. Edwards signed the bill on June 9.

The new bill would allow for the adoption of  “daylight saving time as the year-round standard time, in the event of a change in federal law.”

If the federal government decided to allow individual states to decide on whether or not to make daylight saving time permanent, Louisiana would not go back to standard time. 

History:

Time zones were created in 1883 by major railroad companies to resolve confusion and avoid train crashes cause by local times.

As the U.S. entered WWI, the federal government delegated time zone supervision to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).

After WWI, daylight saving time was abolished but was allowed to continue on a state-by-state basis.

Due to the same problem of transportation confusion, the Department of Transporation was given control of DST and time zones in 1966 following WWII to make DST permanent.

Before the war, many states had changed back to daylight saving time due to the lack of regulation. But the Uniform Time Act of 1966 allowed states to opt-out of the permanent change, which two states chose to do.

Now, over four decades later, the most recent bill regarding DST was introduced to Congress on March 7, 2019. It has since been referred to a subcomitte with no further action.

To track the bill’s progression, you can visit the Congressional website.