Daylight-saving provisions ruled illegal

INDIANAPOLIS -- Provisions of a bill that would allow some counties to opt out of statewide observance of daylight-saving time are illegal, the federal government said Tuesday.\nGov. Mitch Daniels sought a legal opinion Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which regulates time zones.\n"They say it's illegal," he said after his office received a letter from the federal agency. "The question is, should the General Assembly pass something they know is illegal or patch it up when there's time left in the session?"\nRepublican Rep. Jerry Torr of Carmel, the bill's primary sponsor, said he was unsure how to proceed, but he did not seek a vote on the bill Tuesday.\nThe transportation agency cited a federal law that says any state with more than one time zone can exempt either the entire state from daylight time or all of its area within any single time zone.\n"It is our view that this provision means that all of the counties that are located in a specified time zone either observe, or do not observe, daylight-saving time," the agency said in a letter sent to Steve Schultz, the governor's general counsel.\nThe letter did not address why five counties in southeastern Indiana are allowed to observe daylight time, though 77 other counties in the Eastern time zone do not under state law. Neither the state nor the county governments in those southeastern counties ever took official action to approve those exemptions.