Committee Advances Bill to Reconstitute Major Airport Boards, Sparking Local'control Questions

The House Transportation Committee on March 10 approved legislation to reconstitute boards that govern major airports across the state and to change who makes appointments to those boards.

Representative Garrett, the sponsor, told the committee the bill rewrites airport authority statutes to ensure statewide representation on major airport boards and to correct appointment issues in the Tri Cities region. "It creates more of a uniform statewide, authority boards to make sure that we replace our existing outdated authority boards and instead promote statewide governance of our airports across this state," the sponsor said.

Members who opposed the bill raised concerns about reducing local control and potential impacts on existing grant relationships. Representative 10 (Pearson) said the bill "vacates every single one of our boards" and questioned possible consequences for Federal Aviation Administration grants currently in the pipeline.

Committee debate focused on who would be appointed and whether appointees would be local to each metro area. The sponsor said appointees for a given metropolitan airport would be from that locality and that the change would allow Tennesseans who indirectly fund airports through state budgets to have representation.

The committee voted to move the bill to calendar and rules; the clerk recorded 16 ayes and 4 noes. The committee chair said the bill now advances to the next stage of the legislative process.