Amid bustling passengers and busy ticket counters, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Tuesday laid out details of a federal appropriation to introduce upgrades to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and billions to strengthen air travel in the Lone Star State.

The ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which shepherded the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024, Cruz touted the $105 billion package as an effort to bolster on-the-ground technology at airports across the country, modernize equipment and infrastructure and protect passengers.

Signed into law May 16 by President Joe Biden, the legislation will fund the FAA through 2028 and will begin an initial series of safety investments at airports across the country, including Austin.

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The biggest wins, Cruz said during a news conference Tuesday, will be new runway tracking technology soon to be introduced in Austin, a new direct flight between San Antonio and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and provisions to ensure airports have enough air traffic controllers.

“This bill is not overtly partisan on one side or the other. We didn’t go with any crazy right-wing or crazy left-wing ideas,” Cruz said. “Listen, everybody wants aviation safety, everyone wants their kids to arrive safely where they’re going. Everyone wants the aviation sector to be more efficient, to be more effective, for consumers to have lower prices, and so we focused on areas of agreement.”

In total, Texas’ airports from Midland to Corpus Christi will receive $4 billion in federal funds through the bipartisan package for infrastructure projects and improvements, Cruz said.

Last year, more than 22 million passengers traveled through Austin’s airport — over 1 million more passengers than the previous record of just over 21 million in 2022, a record Cruz said influenced the investment in Central Texas’ airspace.

“This airport moves in designation from what’s considered a midsized airport to a large airport because of the volume of traffic,” Cruz said, complimenting Austin airport officials for handling the travel influx. “And that’s directly driven by all the people coming to Austin, coming to Central Texas, all the companies moving their headquarters here and the traffic that is coming in.”

‘Close calls’ in Austin

Specifically, the FAA Reauthorization Act will deploy “surface situational awareness technologies” — a technology known as Airport Surface Detection Equipment, or ASDE-X — to track runway activity in hopes of avoiding collisions and the near misses experienced in Austin.

“We are grateful to our partners at the FAA for prioritizing Austin airport as one of the first airports in the nation to receive this equipment,” said Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom, during the news conference.

The installation of the technology is expected to begin in July, Cruz said.

Austin has seen multiple “close calls” over the past year, including a Southwest flight waiting for takeoff in February 2023 that was nearly hit by a FedEx cargo plane, which came within 100 feet of the passenger plane on the runway upon landing.

More: Federal safety officials publish findings, interviews from close-call at Austin airport

In September, the pilot of a Cessna Citation jet took evasive action after receiving an onboard proximity alert about a nearby F/A-18 fighter. The fighter also flew near a light, propeller-powered plane that was preparing for takeoff on a nearby runway. The pilot of the private jet made an evasive maneuver to steer clear of the fighter as both tried to land at the Austin airport, an FAA spokesperson said in October.

Cruz highlighted those near “utterly tragic” incidents as an issue lawmakers and federal officials were focused on addressing through the aviation omnibus bill.

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“I can’t count how many thousands of times I’ve sat on a Southwest plane getting ready to take off, and I don’t think it’s ever once occurred to me that a jet might land on top of us,” Cruz said, emphasizing the need for new tracking technology.

Women in aviation, right to refund

Outside of safety concerns, the bipartisan package creates a new Women in Aviation Advisory Committee within the U.S. Department of Transportation to encourage more women to join the aviation industry.

Additionally, Republicans and Democrats have touted the legislation’s provisions tied to passengers, which ensures those who experience delays during travel are entitled to ticket refunds. Mirroring language recently introduced by the Transportation Department, passengers now have a statutory right to a hassle-free refund when an airline cancels or significantly delays a flight.

Significant changes to a flight include departure or arrival times that are more than three hours domestically and six hours internationally; departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or connections at different airports or flights on different planes that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability, according to the Transportation Department.

The new law also prohibits airlines from issuing fees for those seeking family seating arrangements.

“Passengers shouldn’t have to jump through endless hoops just to get the refunds that they are owed, and corporations shouldn’t rip off hardworking Americans through hidden junk fees,” Biden said in a statement celebrating the bill’s passage this month. “I want to thank members of both parties who worked together over many months to pass this long-term reauthorization”

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Further earmarks under the FAA Reauthorization bill include:

• $66.7 billion for FAA operations to fund key safety programs, from aircraft certification reform to air carrier oversight, and enable the hiring, training and retention of safety-critical staff like air traffic controllers and engineers.
• $17.8 billion for facilities and equipment modernization of key technologies and systems to “ensure the resilience and development of the world’s most complex airspace system.”
• $19.35 billion for airport infrastructure improvement grants to support more than 3,300 airports nationwide. 
• $1.59 billion for research, engineering and development to help America keep competitive in the global race for innovative and sustainable aerospace technology.
• $738 million in appropriations for the National Transportation Safety Board for fiscal 2024 through 2028.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Evander curled in a beautiful free kick in first-half stoppage time, Jonathan Rodríguez added a penalty-kick goal in the 66th minute and the Portland Timbers beat Austin 2-0 on Wednesday night to end a three-game road losing streak.

Portland (5-7-4) won its first game away from home since March 9 against New York City. Austin (6-5-5) had won its last five matches at Q2 Stadium. The Timbers have a head-to-head series lead against Austin with five wins, two losses, and one draw.

Rodríguez, who scored his sixth goal of the season, has produced a goal contribution in five straight games to tie the second-longest streak in Portland history.

The Timbers earned their first clean sheet of the season. James Pantemis, who made his fourth start of the season, dove to his left to deny Sebastián Driussi’s penalty-kick attempt in the 16th to keep it scoreless.

It was the first time Austin went without a goal at home in its last 21 games.

The Timbers have scored at least one goal in 14 of their 16 matches this season.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Felix Gonzalez first used drugs at 9 years old.

Decades later, he continues to cycle in and out of drug use as a way to cope with the trauma from his life, he said. But in the past two years, as someone experiencing homelessness, he has seen more family and friends die on the streets of Austin than at any other time of his life. Most of those deaths are due to fentanyl.

“So much death around fentanyl,” Gonzalez said, as he began tearing up. “I really don’t know what a solution to this is. … But we need help.”

Gonzalez was one of dozens of advocates, local officials, and former and current drug users who stood outside of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance’s drop-in center in East Austin on Wednesday to call for more resources to be put into harm reduction as both the city of Austin and Travis County look to begin their budget processes. The alliance offers services to people at risk of opioid overdoses in the Austin area.

Wednesday’s news conference comes nearly a week after the Travis County medical examiner, J. Keith Pinckard, presented the office’s annual report, which found that overdoses were the county’s leading cause of accidental deaths — a trend driven by an increase in the deadly drug fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin that has been found laced in other drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine.

Overdose deaths and fentanyl-related overdoses increased last year, the report found, with 486 people dying of an overdose.

So far, this year doesn’t seem to be bringing much of an improvement, as the county recently saw an overdose surge that resulted in 79 overdoses and nine deaths in less than a week. Fentanyl was present in each of the nine deaths, county spokesperson Hector Nieto has said. No arrests have been made in connection to this surge.

“We’ve been raising the alarm for so long, and we do not have the support we need,” said Alexandra White, director of services for the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance. “We are so tired. We are working so hard to keep our people alive that we don’t even have time to mourn our dead.”

During the previous state legislative session, harm reduction efforts such as legalizing fentanyl testing strips in Texas stalled in the Senate despite a measure passing in the House.

Many of the people who spoke at Wednesday’s news conference urged state lawmakers to make fentanyl testing strips legal during next year’s legislative session.

Travis County has the highest rate of fentanyl-related deaths in the state compared with other major metropolitan counties. Experts have partially attributed the rate to the area’s lack of treatment options and local policies that have made implementing a successful harm reduction strategy more difficult.

What is harm reduction?

Harm reduction includes making things available to drug users that can help limit some of the adverse effects that are typically associated with illicit drug use. Some of those items include clean needles, wound care and Narcan, a nasal spray that, if administered soon enough, can reverse an opioid overdose.

However, Maggie Luna, executive director of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, said harm reduction is a lot more than just providing Narcan to people. She said it’s providing support to drug users, and oftentimes people who are homeless, with dignity and without judgment. This can include offering people a meal, a place to shower or safe sex supplies, all things that the organization provides.

The alliance offers harm reduction in two forms: through its drop-in center in East Austin and through its outreach teams, which go to various places throughout the city where campsites or large numbers of people experiencing homelessness are typically found.

Currently, the alliance employs 11 people, including four on the outreach team and another four in the drop-in center. That’s not enough for Travis County, Luna said, and it’s why the group is asking Austin Public Health to increase its current yearly budget of $684,000 to $1 million.

White said that, in six months, the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance has handed out supplies to more than 1,800 people.

What are county leaders saying?

Leaders such as County Judge Andy Brown and Commissioner Ann Howard both spoke at Wednesday’s news conference and said they would be asking the Travis County Commissioners Court for more funding.

“We have pledged at Travis County to listen and to learn and to invest where it matters,” Howard said. “We need to do more, and we are in agreement about that. It is a struggle. There’s lots of needs in Travis County, we’re growing fast, but I think nothing compares to this one.”

Brown said increasing funding for harm reduction is a short-term solution and that, long term, the county is looking to increase permanent supportive housing for people who are homeless. Additionally, he said the upcoming mental health diversion center is another option to help treat people who are arrested on a low-level crime in a way other than sending them to jail.

While the building is likely years away from being completed, Brown said a pilot program between the county, the city of Austin and Central Health, the Travis County hospital district, has been given the green light. The pilot can handle up to 25 people and will begin taking people soon, if it hasn’t already, Brown said.

Other solutions

In addition to calling for more resources to be put into harm reduction, many called for an end to stigmas and for increased access to permanent supportive housing.

Permanent supportive housing is one of the two types of rental assistance offered to people experiencing homelessness in Austin. These vouchers have no time limit and come with intensive services, such as mental health treatment. The city has increased its capacity in recent years and expects to have an additional 1,000 permanent supporting housing units by 2026, with some being made available this year.

However, the number of people moving into permanent supportive housing units each year is far lower than the total number of people seeking such assistance, the American-Statesman reported.

White and others said the continued sweeps of homeless camps are making it more difficult to provide harm reduction supplies to the people who need it the most. White also called for investigations anytime there’s an overdose death in one of the city-funded shelters or housing projects.

Gonzalez, who said he is a veteran who served in the U.S. Navy in the late 1980s, said people living in campsites often won’t call 911 for fear that doing so will put them on the radar of police or city officials, which will then cause them to lose all their belongings.

“I just wish the public would open up their eyes a little bit and not be so close-minded,” Gonzalez said. “They think a lot of this is taboo and stuff, but, no, it’s real life. Basically, it’s just a little more consideration for other human lives.”