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Senate committee hears nominees for Idaho Board of Environmental Quality; votes deferred
Summary
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard testimony from Lance Boylan of Kellogg and Dennis Lecombe of Idaho Falls on nominations to the Idaho Board of Environmental Quality. Both nominees described technical experience; the committee said it will schedule votes at a later date.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee on an unspecified date heard gubernatorial nominations for two positions on the Idaho Board of Environmental Quality but deferred votes to a future meeting.
Vice Chair Senator Vierke opened the committee’s consideration of Lance Boylan of Kellogg, nominated for a term commencing Dec. 1, 2024, and expiring July 1, 2028. Boylan told the committee he has worked in the environmental field in Idaho since 2011 and described a career that includes engineering and operations roles at mine sites and work on reclamation projects across multiple U.S. states and the Yukon Territory. "It's long been a dream of mine to serve this great state in any capacity where I can do so competently," Boylan said.
Boylan said he earned a bachelor of science in environmental engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, obtained an EIT license in Colorado, and has held a professional environmental engineering license in good standing since 2020. He described duties at the Lucky Friday Mine and later roles overseeing closure, reclamation and water-treatment projects, and he detailed experience with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System monitoring, stormwater BMPs, spill-prevention work, tailings impoundment inspections and hazardous-waste reporting. He disclosed his current employer and said he was offering full transparency about that affiliation: "I wanted to be fully transparent in my history, who I work for. ... So, I just wanted to list that. So, it didn't seem like I was keeping anything under wraps. Just full transparency." The committee did not take a vote on his nomination at the hearing.
The committee then considered the nomination of Dennis Lecombe of Idaho Falls to the same board, for a term also listed as commencing Dec. 1, 2024, and expiring July 1, 2028. Lecombe introduced himself as a registered geologist with a master's degree in geology and said he has worked in environmental management for more than 20 years and lived in Idaho for about seven years. He praised what he described as a collaborative regulatory climate in Idaho and emphasized using science and cooperation between regulators and operators. "It's a system of collaboration that both protects the environment and allows businesses to thrive," Lecombe said, and he cited reuse and conservation practices from his work with food processing as examples: "We reuse our water four times maybe on average inside the plant before we finally send it out to our recycling project."
Committee members asked both nominees about priorities and about balancing competing interests such as water supply, water quality and agriculture. Both nominees said growth and water-resource pressures are central challenges in Idaho; Boylan also highlighted aging infrastructure, and Lecombe emphasized education and conservation in agriculture. Several senators thanked the nominees and the committee repeatedly indicated the panel would set a future date to vote on the appointments. "We will reach out and let you know the date of which we'll be making our vote on your appointment," Vice Chair Senator Vierke told the nominees.
No formal actions on the nominations occurred during the hearing; the committee said it would notify the nominees of the date when it will hold a vote.
