[tz] Unfortunate time zone names in the United States

John Levine johnl at taugh.com
Thu Mar 17 19:13:14 UTC 2022


Here's the soon to be screwed up definition of US time zones.

15 USC 261 says

 For the purpose of establishing the standard time of the United
 States, the territory of the United States shall be divided into nine
 zones in the manner provided in this section. Except as provided in
 section 260a(a) of this title, the standard time of the first zone
 shall be Coordinated Universal Time retarded by 4 hours; that of the
 second zone retarded by 5 hours; that of the third zone retarded by 6
 hours; that of the fourth zone retarded by 7 hours; that of the fifth
 zone retarded 8 hours; that of the sixth zone retarded by 9 hours;
 that of the seventh zone retarded by 10 hours; that of the eighth zone
 retarded by 11 hours; and that of the ninth zone shall be Coordinated
 Universal Time advanced by 10 hours. 

15 USC 263 says:

 The standard time of the first zone shall be known and designated as
 Atlantic standard time; that of the second zone shall be known and
 designated as eastern standard time; that of the third zone shall be
 known and designated as central standard time; that of the fourth zone
 shall be known and designated as mountain standard time; that of the
 fifth zone shall be known and designated as Pacific standard time;
 that of the sixth zone shall be known and designated as Alaska
 standard time; that of the seventh zone shall be known and designated
 as Hawaii-Aleutian standard time; that of the eighth zone shall be
 known and designated as Samoa standard time; and that of the ninth
 zone shall be known as Chamorro standard time.

Section 260a currently has the daylight saving rule, advance in March,
fall back in November.

The bill passed by the Senate deletes 260a, and updates 261 to change
each of the numbers by an hour, 4 changes to 3, 5 to 4, and so forth
11 changes to 10 and the final 10 changes to 11.

But it does *not* change section 263.  This means that the official
US names of the time zones change, which is really stupid.  Since
Hawaii, Samoa, and Guam do not use daylight time, Hawaii will now be in
Alaska standard time, Samoa in Hawaii-Aleutian standard time,
and Guam in a time zone with no name.

I hope the House will fix this if they take up the bill, but I wouldn't
make any changes to my time zone files yet.

With respect to Canada, history shows that their timezones follow the
US so if the US make a change like this, a bill in Ottawa will change
Canada to match. There are currently places where you change time when
you cross the border, like between Maine and New Brunswick, but it
would be too painful for Montreal and Toronto and Windsor not to match
New York and Detroit, and Vancouver not to match Seattle.

R's,
John







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