Standard Time Act

Standard Time Act
Great Seal of the United States
Long titleAn Act to save daylight and to provide standard time for the United States.
NicknamesCalder Act
Standard Time Act of 1918
Enacted bythe 65th United States Congress
EffectiveMarch 19, 1918
Citations
Public law65-106
Statutes at Large40 Stat. 450
Codification
U.S.C. sections created15 U.S.C. ch. 6, subch. IX §§ 261–264 [1]
Legislative history

The Standard Time Act of 1918, also known as the Calder Act, was the first United States federal law implementing Standard time and Daylight saving time in the United States.[2] It defined five time zones for the continental United States and authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to define the limits of each time zone.

The section concerning daylight saving time was repealed by the act titled An Act For the repeal of the daylight-saving law, Pub. L. 66–40, 41 Stat. 280, enacted August 20, 1919, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.

As a result of a 1966 amendment of Section 261 to add more time zones, the wording in Section 264 of the act wrongly placed most of the state of Idaho (south of the Salmon River) in UTC−06:00 CST (Central Standard Time), but was amended in 2007 by Congress to UTC−07:00 MST (Mountain Standard Time).[3] MST was observed prior to the correction.

  1. ^ The Uniform Time Act of 1966. Pub. L. 89–387, 80 Stat. 107, enacted April 13, 1966
  2. ^ Prerau, David (2006). Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time. Thunder's Mouth Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-56025-796-7.
  3. ^ U S Congress (2010). Congressional Record, V. 153, PT. 4, February 17, 2007 to March 12, 2007. BERNAN Press. p. 5309. ISBN 9780160869761. Retrieved May 14, 2015.