The early onset of daylight saving time in the USA this year may have been for naught. The move to turn the clocks forward by an hour on March 11 rather than the usual date in early April was mandated by the federal government as an energy-saving effort — but the move appears to have had little impact on power usage. “We haven’t seen any measurable impact,” said Jason Cuevas, spokesman for Southern Co., one of the nation’s largest power companies, echoing comments from several large utilities.

But we’re not out of the woods yet:

Congress plans to evaluate the effects of the earlier switch to daylight saving time. Perhaps the biggest effect was felt by the computer and gadget users who needed software patches to keep their digital devices on the right time. Dan Hermann, a computer programmer in New York, updated his gadgets to the new daylight saving time three weeks ago, only to have them automatically shift forward by another hour on Sunday, the previous start date for daylight saving time.

So, is the government to blame – or are scientists working for the government to blame? Science geeks, help me out here. What really happened?