Can anyone tell me why Congress made the changes to DST (Three weeks earlier this Spring, one week later this fall)? I’m not debating the relative merits of DST, just the reasoning behind this year’s rescheduling.
I can understand the fall change–this ensures more daylight on Haloween evening for trick-or-treaters. But the spring change has me scratching my head…
“To save energy”.
The goal was ostensibly to save energy by increasing the length of DST by four weeks. Why they chose to stick three weeks on the beginning and one on the end, I dunno. Seems two and two would have worked just as well.
That’s my question; why three weeks earlier in spring, one week later in fall? Why an additional four weeks on DST instead of 2, or 6?
The original plan was 2 months total extra DST. What we see now as one month extra is the result of compromises. I will take what I can get but I am not a morning person.
You can’t really extend DST too late into November anyway.
Consider that in NYC, on the last Saturday of November 2007, sunrise will be 6:51. If DST were extended to that time, it would be 7:51.
Having sunrise that late creates several problems:
It defeats the purpose. Now people have to use lights in their house when they get up. The idea is to have it light when people get up.
If sunrise isn’t until close to 8AM, you’re going to be sending a lot of kids to school in the dark.
It can create problems for people who pray at or near sunrise. It would be very difficult to have a prayer service at 8 and still make it to work by 9:00.
I’m sure there may be other issues, but those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.
Oh yeah… and it confuses the cows to get up early. 
Zev Steinhardt