Johnson, Troy Named Leaders of Intrastate Air Service Committee

Two north central Idaho lawmakers have been appointed to lead a new interim committee that will look at intrastate commercial air service.

Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, and Rep. Caroline Troy, R-Genesee, will head up the 11-member committee.

They were appointed by Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill and House Speaker Scott Bedke, respectively. The appointments were confirmed Friday during a meeting of the Legislative Council.

Their first task will be to recruit the other nine members of the committee, who must include representatives from the airline industry, the business community, the Idaho Transportation Department, Idaho airports and the general public.

Johnson proposed the creation of the study committee earlier this year. It was driven in part by Horizon Air’s decision to withdraw from the Lewiston market last year, but the availability of air service is an issue all across the state: No airport in Idaho, including Boise, offers direct commercial flights to any other Idaho city — and that was the situation before the coronavirus pandemic and related shutdown grounded more than 60 percent of the U.S. commercial airline fleet.

The purpose of the committee is to develop a long-term strategy to improve intrastate service in Idaho. It’s modeled on a similar effort that helped maintain and expand commercial air service in Wyoming.

More than a dozen people from the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley and Palouse region made the trip to Boise in February to support Johnson’s resolution, including Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport Executive Director Tony Bean; Clarence W. “Bill” McKown Jr., then-interim manager of the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport; and Gary Peters, chairman of the Lewiston Airport Authority.

In other action Friday, the Legislative Council reappointed Johnson and Troy to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee, which authorizes Office of Performance Evaluation studies of various state agencies and policy issue.

The council appointed members to several other interim committees as well, including an Idaho Content Standards study group and a Property Tax and Property Tax Expenditures study group, which will evaluate Idaho’s public school education standards and property tax structure, respectively.

No other lawmakers from north central Idaho were appointed to interim committees this year. However, Johnson and Sen. Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, both serve on the ongoing Committee on Federalism, which evaluates the impact federal policies have on Idaho.

— William L. Spence

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