(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Already under fire for myriad failures on multiple fronts, Pete Buttigieg has managed to disprove the old saw that even a broken clock is right twice a day. And if you’re one of many bleary-eyed stragglers still grappling with the hour-shift to daylight saving time, the embattled transportation secretary is reportedly to blame.
A bill that was slated to finally eliminate the annual dictum to “fall back and spring forward” became stuck in Congress, as some lawmakers said they want to wait for Buttigieg’s transportation department to finish a promised review of the transition and its policy implications.
That hasn’t happened, what with Buttigieg busy avoiding Ohio’s toxic train derailment and scurrying to find personal time, so the popular, bipartisan Sunshine Protection Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., has been left to wither on the vine.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Presumably due to Buttigieg’s inexperience and lackadaisical leadership style, the review is ‘not expected to be completed until year’s end.’”
The legislation seemed on track last year, when it sailed through the Senate with a target of November 2023 to make daylight saving time permanent across the country, but got sidetracked in the House.
The usual suspects of lobbyists, in this case for the sleep-health industry, and critics, in this case sleep-medicine doctors who claim excessive daylight disrupts circadian rhythms, have also contributed to the legislative stall, the Washington Post reported.
It fell on the Transportation Department to address those outstanding issues and get the bill back on track. But tracks and Buttigieg have proved a bad mix, just ask the folks of East Palestine.
It’s not even a certainty “if Buttigieg even understands how daylight saving time works,” the Free Beacon quipped, much less that clearing the way for its permanent shift is part of his remit.
“Here’s what 8 a.m. looks like on the western edge of the eastern time zone, a few days before daylight savings kicks in,” Buttigieg wrote on Twitter in November 2018.
“I stand corrected,” he tweeted several minutes later. “Daylight Savings is underway, so it’s about to kick… out?”
I stand corrected. Daylight Savings is underway, so it’s about to kick… out?
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) November 1, 2018
