April 14, 2021
To the leadership of the Senate Finance Committee Senator Julie Rosen Chair Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen Vice Chair Senator John Marty
CC: members of the Senate Finance Committee Senator Michelle R. Benson, Senator Bobby Joe Champion, Senator Melisa Franzen, Senator Mark Johnson, Senator Susan Kent, Senator Mary Kiffmeyer, Senator Eric R. Pratt
Dear Senator Rosen, Senator Ingebrigtsen and Senator Marty;
I am addressing this letter to the Senate Finance Committee in the context of the hearing about “Omnibus state government policy and finance bill” SF1831 scheduled on Thursday April 15th.
Please clean Omnibus SF1831 from bill SF149 “Advanced standard time, also known as daylight savings time, year round effective upon authorization of federal law establishment” in fact “extension of DST to the winter” .
SF1831 should not carry SF149.
(1) SF149 has (negative) impact on health, climate and expenses of Minnesotans. (2) SF149 has no $ planned and as did not visible in SGF_SF1831, as Passed by Committee
(3) SF149 has scant analysis and only two authors. In 2019, Senator Housley removed herself from a similar bill I opposed (SF1416).
(4) SF149 has been heard by committee State Government Finance and Policy and Elections and did not involve sufficient analysis and attention to the negative impacts of the bill. (5) SF149 would increase heating bills and car usage, it would discourage the use of bike and pedestrian habits. It would create unsafe and depressing conditions that have already been unhappily experimented on in 1974. (6) SF149 would have adverse effects on health in terms of costs and lives.
(7) Several organisations oppose this bill at national level: among them the National PTA and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
(8) I testified against SF149 and its companion bill HF72 in January and February. Written presentations are available first against SF149 and later against HF72 on Feb 4th: https://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/comm/docs/OVi1FrDolESUOYaaQy_G4g.pdf
Please remove SF149 from the omnibus bill. Also in the future, please vote no to SF149 if presented separately; please start an initiative to improve health, reduce costs and carbon emissions while stopping time changes. Instead of DST year round, Minnesota would benefit from permanent standard time year round. You can call it natural standard time, naturaltime365.
Thanks for your attention. Regards Laetitia Moreau, MS ,MBA