Waking up in a comfortable hotel room this past weekend in Iowa City, I appreciated daylight saving time for the first time. The extra hour of bar time that DST affords students is nice, but it’s nowhere near the feeling I got rolling over, seeing the (unchanged) clock say 11 a.m. – knowing I had to check out at noon – and realizing I had an extra hour to go to the pool. Sadly, though, this is the exclusive benefit of daylight saving time, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 has stupidly made the date we change the clocks disagree with when Europe falls back.

Ignoring for a moment the nuisances of changing every clock in the apartment and adjusting to a one-hour change twice a year, daylight saving time is pointless. Common knowledge is that DST began as a way for farmers to get more use out of limited sunlight before electric lights were common. As usual, common knowledge is wrong. Ben Franklin first advocated DST in 1784, but William Willett started the modern practice in England in the early 20th century. The actual time change was in disarray in the United States until a 1966 law gave us the cliché “Spring Forward, Fall Back” rule and dates.

All the history however, means little as the reason for DST and the Energy Policy Act was an issue very dear to me: energy conservation. Many people cite studies that daylight saving time saves electricity as much as it saves daylight – to the tune of 3.5 percent. This results chiefly from people needing one less hour of light bulbs at night and the accompanying decrease in appliance use (televisions, stereos, etc.). The energy conservation argument further says that the increase in lighting usage by people up early before dawn is more than offset by evening energy savings.

Unfortunately, when people have more late-in-the-day light hours, they tend to do more. This means more errands, more driving and consequently, more gasoline consumption. In 1986, the United States actually extended DST by a month (equivalent to the 2007 extension) to try to save even more energy, but that had no effect on oil consumption. Similarly, during the 1970s oil crisis, President Nixon mandated a six-month extension of DST to reduce oil consumption. Yes, he essentially told everyone to push their clocks forward … and leave them there. Afterward, a Department of Transportation study determined a total of 0 percent fuel savings, yet had the audacity to postulate that in the future DST could save 100,000 barrels of oil. Clearly, the writers made their prediction based on the results of their analysis.

Given evidence that daylight saving time does not save energy overall, why have we extended it by a month this year? Such a move that ignores scientific evidence could only come from the Bush administration. While the fact that Bush recognizes the value of energy conservation is a good thing, he has failed to implement the appropriate policies. Instead of a instituting the superficial solution of pushing the little hand back 30 degrees, a better proposal would have been higher gas mileage standards for cars. Or mandating that electric utilities generate a set percentage of their output from renewable sources. Or not invading Iraq, thereby making oil supplies scarce. But I digress.

Yes, DST does decrease electricity consumption. However, it likely increases oil consumption enough to countermand these savings. While eliminating DST is unlikely, Congress should immediately rescind the 2005 DST extension not only because springing forward does not necessarily save energy in the aggregate, but also because it increases the cost of transcontinental by making our clocks differ from those of other countries by varying amounts during the year.

Interestingly, daylight saving time has other ambitious goals. Did you know the time change decreases the quantity of car accidents by a whopping 1 percent? Sadly, though, evidence suggests that the 99 percent of accidents that still do occur are more severe. Moreover, aside from making my Iowa morning more enjoyable, the only thing DST does well is confuse parents about their children’s birth order. Have you ever considered which twin is officially older: the one born at 1:58 a.m. this past Saturday or the one born 15 minutes later at 1:13 a.m.?