Governor Walz Signed Emergency Executive Order

Earlier this spring Governor Tim Walz signed Emergency Executive Order 19-32 which granted a temporary exemption for hours of service requirements in state law for commercial vehicles hauling anhydrous ammonia and other fertilizer for Minnesota's farmers. By the way all other safety requirements pertaining to drivers and vehicles still apply.

Minnesota got hit with a very cold winter and a lot of snow. That, plus all the rain this spring led to flooding. The result was that farmers all across the Midwest wanting to apply anhydrous ammonia and other fertilizer at the same time. It did not help that a major terminal at Pine Bend was closed this spring for maintenance. A lot of anhydrous ammonia for this area was pulled out of Pine Bend. That meant it had to be trucked from terminals farther away.

The commercial trucking industry has a lot of regulations on equipment and how many hours a driver can be on the road in a certain time period. With the new electronic logs, if the driver "runs out of time" the truck shuts down and cannot exceed 5 miles an hour. That allows the driver to get to a place where the truck can be parked safely until the electronic log allows the truck to be driven again.

It was nice that Governor Walz signed the Emergency Executive Order to allow driver to get the products farmers needed to get the crop planted. I remember a few years back there was a shortage of propane in the fall for corn drying. Governor Dayton signed an Emergency Executive Order allowing drivers  extended hours to haul propane.