It’s almost time to spring forwar one hour, which means entering Daylight Saving Time 2017.

It’s called spring forward because we literally turn our clocks forward one hour, which means we lose an hour that day.

The date to spring forward 2017: Sunday, March 12, 2017. It occurs at 2 a.m., which means from that day forward we will have an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day. Yes, it will also be darker for an hour in the morning.

Residents of Hawaii, most of Arizona and some U.S. territories don’t need to fiddle with their clocks because those places don’t observe daylight saving time.

After Congress added an extra month to Daylight Saving Time in 2007 – starting it three weeks earlier in the spring (the second Sunday in March) and ending it one week later in the fall (the first Sunday in November) – we now spend almost 70 percent of our days each year with an extra hour of light at the end of the day.

Originally, when Daylight Saving Time was established in the United States by a federal standard in 1967, it lasted for six months. The premise sold to legislators: energy conservation.

An extra hour of sunlight for half the year meant less time with the lights on inside. The gasoline and retail lobbying efforts had more to do with it than anything, however, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the strongest force behind the movement.

Studies have shown that people actually don’t save energy and they may use more when gasoline is factored into the equation. They drive to restaurants, they drive shopping, and they drive to sports practices. More people play golf. More shop for groceries.

So retailers, including convenience stores that sell gasoline, successfully lobbied to Congress again in 1986, and Daylight Saving Time was extended for another month, and again in 2007, when it was extended for another month.