It may take some political arm-twisting to get the Transportation Security Administration to come to its senses and we hope a growing coalition of Congress members can supply it.
TSA used to handle security at the Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport until SkyWest stopped serving the airport in June of 2014. Klamath Falls has since found a passenger airline willing to serve it, PenAir, but TSA says it won’t return to Klamath Falls to provide security and PenAir won’t come without it.
TSA hasn’t been especially communicative with us about the details of its decision. Talking to the public isn’t the TSA’s long suit.
Fortunately, Oregon Reps. Greg Walden and Peter DeFazio have teamed with Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and others in Congress in a group that includes both political parties and is working to support the “Treating Small Airports with Fairness Act.” The bill would get TSA back to Klamath Falls and other smaller airports it has abandoned.
Things are looking good for the legislation with its strong, bi-partisan support in Congress, which also holds the TSA’s purse strings. The measure, Senate Bill 2549, will be considered by the full Homeland Security Committee in the House of Representatives, would go to the House floor next and may get to the Senate in April.
The bill says that airports that have lost air service since 2013 and have an airline willing to serve them would have security service restored by TSA.
The issue goes beyond one small airport. It was also a blow to rural America, the kind of area that fills the Second Congressional District represented by Walden and includes about three-fourths of Oregon’s land area. The scenario is repeated throughout much of the United States.
Klamath Falls needs an operating airport. The airline passenger connection is important to the Air National Guard, which employs close to a thousand military and civilians at Kingsley Field. It leases the field from the city of Klamath Falls, the operator of the airport and generates about 60 passenger trips a month by commercial service, which now means driving to Medford.
Passenger service could also restore a $1 million annual maintenance payment to Klamath Falls from the federal government that had dropped to $150,000 year when Skywest left.
In a recent visit to Klamath Falls, Walden said that the proposed legislation is the answer for the problem. As for the TSA’s original refusal to return to Klamath Falls: “The decision by the TSA in the past has lacked common sense.”
It sure has.
