Gov. Jim Doyle signed an executive order Tuesday exempting propane drivers from hours-of-service restrictions in order to help move along the backed-up corn harvest.

Propane use has been up due to high demand on corn dryers in Wisconsin and throughout the nation’s corn belt. Because of a cool August and wet October, this year’s corn harvest has been late, with 38 percent of the state’s crop harvested as of Monday. It has also been wet, requiring additional drying time.

Many propane drivers have spent hours at propane terminals waiting for the product, then have few hours remaining on their allowable shift to drive the propane to its destination. Drivers are allowed by law to have 14 hours with their vehicles, then required to rest for 10 hours.

“I’ve heard of waits as long as 10 to 14 hours at Rockford,” said Betsy Ahner, executive director of the Wisconsin Propane Gas Association. “It takes 45 minutes to an hour to load a truck. By the time they’d sit there, they didn’t have time to drive back.”

The governor’s order exempts propane drivers from state and federal driving time limits until Dec. 1.

Ahner said going into the harvest, propane supplies were good. Last month, the Energy Information Administration predicted that homes heated with propane would spend approximately 14 percent less this winter than last winter.

“We went into the season with high levels in storage throughout the U.S.,” Ahner said. “We’re not out of propane, the problem is in moving it around fast enough.”

Ahner said mild temperatures in November have lessened demand for propane for home heat, which would only further tax the supply.

“The priority would be to the home heating before the farms,” Ahner said.

In addition to the lateness of the crop, the corn has been coming to drying facilities at 30 percent moisture and beyond, when it usually comes in around the high teens to low 20s. The additional drying is causing a demand for propane as well as creating bottlenecks at facilities that are run on natural gas.

Ahner said propane prices have crept up approximately 20 cents a gallon in recent weeks, but were still 48 cents lower than this time last year. If supplies remain strong and there’s no great immediate demand for home heat, Ahner said, the forecast for lower winter heat costs could stay in place.

“Supply was good going into the year, that’s a good sign,” she said. “But there’s no way of knowing where it’s going to go from here.”

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