Colorado keeps switching

Coloradoans will have to keep "springing forward" and "falling back".

A bill to observe daylight saving time year-round in Colorado has been rejected by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday, April 15, 2011. A similar bill had been put on indefinite hold in February 2011.

Sun sets on DST bill

Republican Senator Greg Brophy's proposal to abolish the yearly switch between standard and daylight saving time had been met by fierce resistance from day one. It's biggest adversary was the ski industry whose representatives claimed that the measure would kill business on winter mornings.

It had nonetheless been unanimously approved by the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy committee on March 16. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee now rejected the idea. "The sun just set on my bill", Sen. Brophy said after the vote.

Colorado’s Time Zone

Colorado is on Mountain Standard Time (MST), or UTC-7, during the non-daylight saving period. The state observes Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), or UTC-6, during daylight saving time. It follows the United States’ daylight saving schedule.

DST in many parts of the United States – including Colorado – lines up with section 110 of the United States’ Energy Policy Act of 2005, which states that daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November. The law also grants individual states and territories the right to opt out of using daylight saving time.