Updated April 8, 2026

Introduction – Our HD9 office is carrying House Bill HB 229 that would keep Alaska on its current Standard Time year-round. Alaska’s time has a long and rich history spanning over 150 years of changes. It’s been debated for years in Alaska and in Congress, but with the request of constituents, I’ve introduced the house bill as a companion to Senate Bill SB 102. Currently HB 229, SB 26, and HB 41 discussed below are all in the House State Affairs committee. I am a member of the committee.

Bottom line – Standard time is generally regarded as better for health, while Daylight Savings time is generally regarded as better for recreation and retail business.

Please share your thoughts on the issue and bills by contacting me at rep.ky.holland@akleg.gov

“While some people call standard time “God’s time,” Sen. MacKinnon uses the term “sun time”
See 3/18/2018 AK News Source, link below in articles.

Table of Contents with Links to Sections

• ADN Commentary online 10/30/25 by Rep. Ky Holland
• Links to Bills and associated Akleg.gov resources
• History of Time, in Alaska
• Additional Thoughts left out of the original commentary due to length.
• Loose Ends to add and update in the future
• Resources
• Articles for and against ending the clock reset twice a year that I’ll be updating regularly. Please send me items to add.

Ky

Anchorage Daily News – Opinion: Alaska’s time problem isn’t about the clock

By Representative Ky Holland, Posted October 30, 2025 and published November 2nd and on the ADN.com site October 31, 2025.

On November 2, Alaskans will once again “fall back” as we return to Alaska Standard Time. We’ll reset clocks, enjoy an extra hour of sleep, and for a moment, ask the same question we always do: Why are we still doing this?

Twice a year, we change our clocks but not our habits. We promise reform, but mostly we fall back—keeping old patterns that no longer work.

That’s why, when encouraged by constituents, I started to study this issue. I didn’t plan to sponsor a “time bill.” Frankly, “Fall Back, Spring Forward” is the only part of this issue that is easy to understand, since time can’t truly be “saved”, only shifted.

While there are many more pressing issues, few directly improve people’s health at no cost. And the more I looked at it, the more I saw what it revealed about us as a state. Every year we promise to do better—on energy, on education, on housing, on our fiscal plan—and every year we find a reason to wait. We say we’ll get to it next session, next election, next time. And just like the clock, we fall back.

So I introduced House Bill 229, which would keep Alaska on permanent Standard Time and end the twice-a-year clock change once and for all. It’s a small bill, but it’s about something bigger: whether we still have the courage to make decisions that are entirely within our own control.

To be fair, HB 229 is not the only bill on this issue. There are four in total, but they all do one of two things: move Alaska permanently to existing Standard Time (HB 229, SB 102), or petition the federal government to move Alaska to permanent Daylight Saving Time (HB 41, SB 26).

Let’s be clear on this one point in an otherwise twilight zone issue: Alaska has sole authority to adopt existing Alaska Standard Time to end this debate and future clock changes. No federal review or permission required.

Because of a quirk of federal law, if we choose to adopt permanent Daylight Saving Time (as competing bills propose to do), we must wait for Federal DOT or Congress to allow the change.

Moreover, the science is clear: changing the clock twice a year hurts people. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and others have documented spikes in heart attacks, traffic accidents, and mental-health crises after each change, especially the spring shift when we get up early. Alaskans already live at the extremes of light and dark, and clocks in the western parts of our state are severely misaligned with the sunrise and sunset. Moving to permanent Daylight Saving time would push communities—where students already head to school in the dark for most of the year—further out of alignment with the natural circadian rhythms.

And yet, we’ve let this simple issue become as tangled as our own politics. Some want permanent Daylight Saving Time, others want permanent standard time, but over 95% say they don’t want to change their clocks anymore. Less than 1% want to keep switching. Asked only about Daylight Saving Time, 98% say they would get rid of it if they could. And, when asked about the options of Standard Time versus Daylight Saving Time, 76% would choose Standard Time. (Data for Progress July 2025).

Ending the clock change won’t transform our economy or solve our energy crisis. And I understand that those in the visitor and recreation industries prefer the current summer Daylight Savings Time’s longer evening hours and our land of the “midnight sun”, but the days won’t actually get any longer—it’s our choice how we use the hours we have.

It’s also our choice to start doing something, rather than avoiding tough decisions and waiting for a non-election year, a new governor, new representatives… someone to do something. We have bigger challenges ahead: securing reliable energy, fixing and filling our schools, building affordable housing, diversifying our economy. But every one of those starts with the same question that this small bill, HB 229, asks: are we willing to act in the best interests and preferences of Alaskans, with the authority granted to us, or will we just keep resetting and falling back again?

I’m tired of the cycle. Maybe you are too. Let’s stop complaining about the same problems every year and start solving the ones we can. If Alaska can’t even decide what time it is without asking permission, how are we going to lead our own future?

We can’t change the length of the day, but we can choose how we use the time we have.

It’s time to stop falling back—on the clock, and as a state—and start moving forward.

Ky

Representative Ky Holland serves House District 9, representing South Anchorage, Hillside, Girdwood, and Whittier.

Links to Current Bills and associated testimony, if any, and documents

• HB 41 (Allard) (Requires Congress to change Daylight Savings Time)
• SB 26 (Merrick) (Requires Federal DOT to change time zone boundaries)
• SB 102 (Senate State Affairs) (No federal action required)
• HB 229 (Holland) (No federal action required)

A History of Time, in Alaska for history fans: 

1867 – The dateline was moved east to its present location transferring Alaska from East Asian time to American Time. This change also involved the change from the Russian Julian Calendar to the western Georgian Calendar. The combined effect caused a “double Friday” where Friday, October 6 was followed by Friday, October 18, skipping October 7–17, while also making the day the transition occurred Friday, October 6, 1867, followed by the new day, Friday, October 18, 1867. 

1867 – 1900 – After the purchase and date-line shift, there was no territorial or federal law governing civil time in Alaska. Each community kept its own local mean solar time, just as U.S. towns did before railroad standardization in 1883. Examples include: Sitka was set to solar noon, about GMT -9:01, Fort Yukon and interior trading posts followed Hudson Bay schedules.

1883 – Railroads had established four continental time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific. These zones helped with scheduling and efficiency of operations. History.com Article.

1900 – The 35th Congress and U.S. Army Signal Corps established Alaska Standard Time for the new telegraph system (WAMCATS). The Army choice a time centered on the 135th meridian running through SE Alaska, broadly applied to the entire territory of Alaska, one hour earlier than Pacific Time. While the AKST was established based on Southeast Alaska where the 135 crosses, there were actually five informal times zones [not all sources agree on this, I’m still trying to sort this out] across the state including:

• Pacific Time – (GMT -8 = current Pacific standard time) Adopted voluntarily by SE communities to align with Seattle transportation schedules. Included Ketchikan, Juneau, Annette Island.
• Yukon Time – (GMT -9) including Skagway and Yakutat – Matched Yukon Territory/Whitehorse; supported by the White Pass & Yukon Railway and telegraph.
• Alaska – Hawaii Time (GMT -10) including Anchorage and Fairbanks – Used by the U.S. Army Signal Corps telegraph network, aviation operators, and the Alaska Railroad for internal coordination.
• Bering Time (GMT -11) – Nome and Bethel – Reflected local solar time; used by traders, missionaries, and early air routes.
• Aleutian Time (GMT -12) – Adak, Attu – Used by Navy and Army bases in WWII and local stations west of 169° W.
• Reference – here is one source that suggests only four zones, but provides more details on the 4/5 zone history. ADN Published 6/8/2021 Curious Alaska: The state used to span 4 time zones. What happened?

1918 – Uniform Time Act of 1918 – Congress adopted the four railroad time zones and the US army Alaska zone. The act also introduced WWI “War Time” under President Wilson. Following European wartime efficiency measures, the U.S. adopted nationwide “War Time” (DST). Alaska was assigned its own War Time zone two hours behind Pacific Time. The law was repealed in 1919 after public backlash, but some Alaskan towns briefly experimented with local “summer time.”

1942–1945 – WWII Year-Round “War Time” (President Franklin D. Roosevelt) The U.S. again mandated nationwide “War Time.” Most Alaskans advanced clocks one hour. It ended on September 30, 1945, when President Truman signed the repeal on September 25th, returning the nation to standard time. However, following the repeal cities and states continued haphazard use of DST creating confusion for anyone traveling.

Post-WWII (1945–1966) Alaska informally used four the four local zones: Pacific Time (Southeast), Yukon Time (Skagway/Yakutat), Alaska Time (Anchorage–Fairbanks corridor), and Bering Time (Western Alaska/Aleutians). No daylight saving time was observed.

1966 – The Uniform Time Act (President Lyndon B. Johnson) Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, standardizing DST nationally and recognizing Alaska’s four official time zones. (Bering and Aleutian appear to have been combined at this time.) Alaska began observing Daylight Saving Time in 1967–1968 under this law. Time zone administration was moved from Commerce to Transportation.

1974 – Permanent DST Experiment (President Richard Nixon, repealed 9 months later under Gerald Ford) In response to the energy crisis, the nation went on year-round DST beginning January 6, 1974. Widespread opposition—especially in northern states where sunrise came dangerously late—led President Ford and Congress to repeal it that October, restoring the seasonal switch .

1983 – Alaska Time Zone Consolidation (President Ronald Reagan) Following Governor Bill Sheffield’s petition, the U.S. Department of Transportation merged Alaska’s four zones into two, then effectively one: Most of the state moved to the new Alaska Time (UTC–9), one hour earlier than Pacific. The western Aleutians adopted Hawaiian–Aleutian Time (UTC–10). Only Metlakatla kept Pacific Time. Here are some letters on the issue at the time published in the ADN. And ALASKA’S FOUR TIME ZONES NOW TWO from the New York Times in 1983.

1986-2007 – Changes in the start and end of DST were enacted by Congress, the last change, moving the end of DST a week later, to benefit the candy industry by including Halloween.

Thoughts left out of the original article/post

We currently have a single time standard across a 2,400-mile span that permanently shifted much of Alaska more than an hour off its solar time and a health allighment of our natural circadian rhythm and the health benefits humans enjoy from living on a schedule more natural to to place they live. We do have extremes of light and dark here making the issue of time zones hard to debate around the winter and summer solstices, but for the rest of the year it matters, and the time change arbitrarily in March, has its consequences. 

Standard time actually fits Alaska best compared to Daylight Savings Time or continuing the annual shift back and forth, but its still only one zone in a vast state that should have four, or at least three like the similar expanse of the Lower 48. And permanent standard time better aligns us with the sun, our health, and key neighbors—Yukon, Hawaii, Iceland, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan—all of which have already stopped changing clocks.

Alaska’s place on the globe gives us a unique advantage: we can talk to Europe in the morning and East Asia in the afternoon. We don’t need to imitate the lower 48 or be like the west coast to succeed – we are a globally positioned state, ideally positioned on the great circle route to Asia and Europe, not a suburb of Seattle.

Loose Ends to update or add in the future

• Add credit for post image of sun rise across AK.
• Add some maps of the different time zones including Russian, five zones, four zones, two zones
• Add maps showing what the time zones would to in order to have solar noon = local noon time.
• Add map or list of times observed by others around and of interest to Alaska – Hawaii, Yukon, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Arizona

Additional Resources

Daylight Saving Time | State Legislation NCSL

Curious Alaska: The state used to span 4 time zones. What happened? from 2021.

Save Standard Time – website – https://savestandardtime.com

Summer 2025 Data For Progress Survey (scroll down to find the Standard Time survey question), however, I’m currently uncertain whether to use the question and its results in the future due to confusion about what “standard time” people may have been thinking about when responding.

Keeping Time in Alaska: National Directives, Local Response By Frank Norris. “Time zones and daylight savings time have an interesting history in Alaska, a state that straddles so many degrees of longitude and has more than its share of summer daylight and winter darkness.  Frank Norris’s article on keeping time in Alaska in the 2001 issue of Alaska History tells that story and is reproduced” in this link.

Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement.

More Than Half in U.S. Want Daylight Saving Time Sunsetted – Gallup Poll 2025.

Why Daylight Saving Time Is a Perennial Source of Debate. Bloomberg

How will making daylight saving time permanent affect the economy? Marketplace

General Research on these topics was done with the assistance of ChatGPT, and additional checks with backup sources to verify information.

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