The President orders energy standards

President Obama has signed a Presidential Memorandum ordering higher energy efficiency standards on items such as dishwashers, lamps, and microwave ovens. I will write him a letter about how daylight-saving time causes greater energy usage. Here are three studies about this:

1. An April 5, 2007 USA Today article cited Energy Department figures to report a 3% increase in gasoline consumption during the three-week time period in March compared to the previous two years on standard time

2. A study out of Berkeley by Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff concludes that changing to daylight saving time earlier may use more energy because of increased demand when it's dark in the morning. The authors studied an earlier springtime DST change in Australia prior to the 2000 Olympics. They question if this clock change saves energy like it used to because "the widespread adoption of air conditioning has altered intraday patterns of electricity consumption." (see http://www.ucei.berkeley.edu/PDF/csemwp163.pdf)

3. A27 February 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a UC Santa Barbara study showing residential electricity soared up to four percent in Indiana after DST was imposed on that state in 2007. The reason why was increased air conditioning use in the evening. The study also finds that reduced evening lighting in March is offset by people using their heaters for a longer period of time on cool mornings. The study can be viewed at http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~kotchen/links/DSTpaper.pdf

When Congress extended DST in 2005, they ordered an Energy Department study to see if it really saves energy. This report was due in December 2007. Now fourteen months later, it still hasn't been released.