Political Quotes

“Ben Franklin certainly would be proud, because as the father of daylight savings time, we are finally implementing his ideas in this legislation. I want to thank the many Republicans and Democrats that are supporting this legislation in both bodies. And, of course, on daylight savings time today, it starts the first Sunday in April, it goes through the last Sunday in October. We learned, my coauthor, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), and myself learned that there was a U.S. Government study done back when maybe I was in junior high school that we said that we would save 100,000 barrels of oil a day for every day that we extended daylight savings time. That was when we had 50 million fewer Americans. Well, guess what we do in this bill? Beginning in 2007, we will change daylight savings time. It will start now the second Sunday in March, it will go through Halloween, through the first Sunday in November. We know that traffic fatalities will decrease. We know that crime rates will decrease. We know that folks will get home with an hour more of sunlight, whether they are coming home from school or whether they are coming home from work. And by having it kick in 2007, we will allow other countries, whether they be Canada, Mexico, perhaps Europe, to establish their timelines the same as ours. We will add a little more sunshine to everybody's day.”