To get your local time (perldoc -f localtime()):

perl -e 'my $date = localtime(time()); print $date;'

To get GMT time (perldoc -f gmtime()):

perl -e 'my $date = gmtime(time()); print $date;'

To get EST:

perl -e 'print "TZ=$ENV{TZ}: ", scalar localtime, "\n";
         $ENV{TZ}="US/Eastern"; 
         print "TZ=$ENV{TZ}: ", scalar localtime, "\n"'
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