You can't fly there from here.

 

 Over the Laramie Range.

Unfortunate news from the Casper Star Tribune:

CHEYENNE – A legislative committee chose not to move a draft bill forward this week that would have made fundamental changes to commercial air service in Wyoming.

I was really hoping that the bill would pass.

But I wasn't optimistic that it would.  Wyoming has never been very sympathetic to public funding of business unless its vicarious.  People support funding of highway construction, for example (although lately not so much in the way of school construction) and the legislature is keen on investing in "clean coal" development, even though the prospects for that appear to be rather remote.  But on a project like this, it would have surprised me if they'd supported it, even though I think it was an excellent idea.

I travel for work constantly and one of the questions I get from my out of state customers is "why don't you fly?"  And by that they mean, why don't you fly from one town to another, as in, why don't you fly from Casper to Jackson, or Cheyenne to Worland, or Gillette to Green River?

Well, you can't.

Oh, of course you can, but not easily.  For example, a person wanting to fly from Casper to Jackson would actually have to fly from Casper to Denver, or Salt Lake, and then from those cities to Jackson.  It'd be an all day ordeal.  It's easier, and much cheaper, to drive.

For us.

Because we're acclimated to it.

But that doesn't work that way for most people from other places.  So, when a company looks to relocate, let's say, from New Jersey to Wyoming, it looks at this stuff.  They figure that if they can fly anywhere on the East Coast, or the West Coast, or the No Coast, in a day hop, well surely they can do the same in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Well, outside of Colorado and Utah, not so much.

At one time, oddly enough, you could.  I can recall when I was young being on planes that went from Casper to Cheyenne or Casper to Billings, Montana. But all of that is long gone. And that fact hurts Wyoming businesses and the prospect s for business.

Well, the Tribune also reported:

But all sides agree the issue isn’t dead for lawmakers.

Hmmm, I bet it is.  And here's the reason why:

An appropriation between $29.5 million and $37.2 million out of the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account – commonly known as the “rainy-day fund” – to enact the 10-year plan would have been made under the bill.

As far as various governmental bodies around here are concerned, it never rains.