MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- An Alabama legislator's proposal to put the state on permanent daylight saving time has stalled like a broken clock.
Republican Sen. Rusty Glover of Semmes announced in October that he would introduce a bill in the 2015 legislative session to keep Alabama on daylight saving time year-round to provide more daylight in the evenings.
However, he said Monday that research by the Legislature's attorneys found that while federal law allows a state to opt out of daylight saving time, it doesn't allow a state to switch to daylight saving time year-round.
Glover said he talked with Gov. Robert Bentley about Alabama possibly switching to the Eastern Time Zone and then opting out of daylight saving time. That would be the equivalent of staying on daylight saving time all the time in the Central Time Zone, but that wasn't feasible either, he said.
The practice of using daylight saving time in summer months and standard time in winter months has been in place since World War I, when it was adopted to save fuel and energy by matching daylight to people's activities.
Glover said 90 percent of the feedback he received about his proposal was positive, and he remains convinced that having an hour more of daylight in the evening year-round would help retail sales and increase public safety.