BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 4, 2023)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Costs keep rising. Why has Austin's affordability committee stopped meeting? (Austin American-Statesman)
Rising tax bills and living expenses are squeezing Council Member Vanessa Fuentes’ constituents in Southeast Austin as much as anybody. So after Fuentes was sworn into office, she asked for a seat on the Regional Affordability Committee, eager to work with other elected officials on potential solutions.
That was two years ago.
She’s still waiting for the group to meet.
Her aides spent months reaching out to city staffers in 2021, “trying to figure out who is in charge of this committee,” said Fuentes, whose name appears on the committee roster alongside officials from Travis and Williamson counties, Capital Metro, Central Health, Austin Community College and several school districts.
Fuentes’ staff heard someone in the city’s Housing and Planning Department was supposed to be involved, but “we could not get any tangible or concrete information.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Andy Brown intends to double down on overdose prevention efforts in 2023 (Austin Monitor)
Coming off a landslide reelection victory in the November election, Travis County Judge Andy Brown is proud of how the Commissioners Court responded to challenges in 2022, from staffing shortages and new state laws threatening civil rights to housing affordability and the recent Arctic freeze. The county also laid the groundwork to launch a mental health diversion pilot program and prevent overdose deaths, two issues he said remain top priorities for 2023.
“I’m real happy with the way that the Commissioners Court worked together this year,” he told the Austin Monitor.
On the staffing front, the Commissioners Court passed a new paid parental leave policy, entitling county employees to eight weeks of paid time off after the birth, adoption, foster placement or kinship placement of a child, and raised the minimum hourly wage for county employees from $15 to $20… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin 'in the sweet spot' to keep growing as a tech hub, industry experts say (Austin American-Statesman)
The area's economy is likely to face challenges in 2023, but it's a safe bet Austin's status as a hub for the high-tech sector will keep growing, industry experts say.
The region's tech sector has boomed in recent years, with numerous companies moving in since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 — including an increasing spectrum of companies tied to billionaire Elon Musk.
Even amid fears of a looming recession and the loss of a major tax-break tool that has been used to attract big projects — such as Samsung’s $17 billion factory under construction in Taylor and Tesla’s $1.1 billion electric vehicle plant in southeastern Travis County — few expect the trend to stop or reverse.
“We’ve seen so many tech companies big and small that have moved or plan to move (to the Austin area) because the engineering talent and success is bringing more success,” said Dan Ives, a tech industry analyst who says momentum is building for Austin to become "Silicon Valley 2.0."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
TxDOT narrows option for widening I-35 through Austin (KUT)
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has released the most detailed description yet of plans to widen I-35 through the core of Austin — explaining how the agency believes its multibillion-dollar highway expansion could affect everything from parks to pollution.
As part of a more-than-7,000 page draft environmental impact statement — required under federal law and released over the holidays — TxDOT revealed which of two competing highway designs it prefers for the multibillion-dollar expansion from Ben White Boulevard to U.S. 290 East.
The winning design, known as "Modified Build Alternative 3" in clunky government parlance, is similar to the rival proposal but was altered in early 2022 partly in an attempt to appease community critics of the original design.
Both proposals would add two high-occupancy vehicle lanes in each direction from Ben White to 290. Both would sink the main lanes below ground level for most of the distance from Oltorf Street to Airport Boulevard, leaving them largely uncovered except for a chunk or two of blocks downtown. And both would force dozens of people from their homes and businesses as the highway's footprint is enlarged to envelop more land… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas ag agency says climate change threatens state’s food supply (TExas Tribune)
On the heels of a historic drought that devastated crops from the High Plains to South Texas, a new Texas Department of Agriculture report released Tuesday linked climate change with food insecurity and identified it as a potential threat to the state’s food supply.
The food access study, coordinated by the TDA and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, notes that “climate instability” is strongly associated with soil loss, water quality, droughts, fires, floods and other environmental disasters.
2022 was one of the driest years on record for Texas, and about 49% of the state was still in drought conditions at the end of December. The drought resulted in failed crops, low yields for farmers and diminished grazing, which forced ranchers to cull their cattle and led to the highest amount of livestock sold — nearly 2.7 million — in more than a decade… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Southwest Airlines sending vouchers to passengers disrupted by holiday meltdown (Dallas Morning News)
Southwest Airlines is sending out vouchers worth as much as $300 to clean up the reputational damage from canceling more than 17,100 flights in eight days around Christmas. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is trying to untangle a mess it made after winter weather swept across the country in the days before Christmas and led to a complete meltdown of the carrier’s pilot and flight attendant scheduling system. The company has promised to refund “reasonable requests” for reimbursement for expenses incurred by passengers who dealt with flight delays and began sending emails to customers this morning as a goodwill offering with a code for 25,000 Rapids Rewards points for Southwest’s frequent flyer program… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Health care lobbyists are bracing for Chair Bernie Sanders (politico)
Health care lobbyists representing insurers, drugmakers and a range of powerful industry interests are steeling themselves for a Senate chair immune to their usual charms — Bernie Sanders. The Vermont independent is set to take over the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next month. Leading the panel gives the Medicare-for-All proponent oversight authority over some of his policy priorities — drug pricing, workers’ rights and income inequality, and student and medical debt. But Sanders’ well-chronicled antagonism toward lobbyists has some concerned they’ll be unable to blunt criticism of their clients’ profits or corporate executive salaries. They are anxious Sanders might seek to revive policies like importing drugs from Canada and other nations, an idea loathed by drugmakers.
Lobbyists also worry they’ll struggle to get traction on any push to make changes to a drug discount program involving pharmaceutical companies and hospitals or revisit association health plans after a Trump-era rule around them was voided. “This will not be business as usual for K Street. It will be harder for companies to get in and make a case,” said Michaeleen Crowell, a lobbyist at lobbying and public affairs firm S-3 Group who served as Sanders’ chief of staff for more than five years. “The culture in the office is one where lobbyists are mistrusted, and they’re more likely to discount what they hear directly from companies.” POLITICO spoke to more than a dozen lobbyists and lawyers about having Sanders at the helm of the HELP Committee, some of whom were granted anonymity to talk about the senator’s dynamic with K Street. Multiple lobbyists representing health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, providers and health systems told POLITICO they’re going to have to “bank shot” their advocacy to get their messages across — lobbying other lawmakers on the committee and getting into the ears of progressive policymakers and left-leaning organizations. “There are ways to get things passively on his radar if you know him well enough, if you know who he listens to or what he reads,” Crowell said. Sanders’ office declined to respond to questions from POLITICO, including those about his relationship with lobbyists… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
GOP senators worry McCarthy diminished by nasty leadership battle (The Hill)
The nasty battle over electing Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the next Speaker is sparking alarm among Senate Republicans who fear the California Republican’s failure to win enough support after multiple votes portends serious problems ahead in the new 118th Congress.
Senate Republicans voiced their confidence in McCarthy when he met with them in the Capitol shortly before Christmas but his failure to budge a group of hard-line conservatives after making major concessions over the weekend on a rules package has them wondering how he can lead.
McCarthy’s inability to unify his conference on the first organizing votes of the new Congress is raising doubts about his — or any Republican Speaker’s — ability to pass debt-limit legislation and appropriations bills this year.
“Don’t they realize how embarrassing this is? Is that possible, that people think about that?” asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) incredulously when informed that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) had nominated Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for Speaker moments after Jordan himself delivered an impassioned speech to nominate McCarthy for the job.
“If it’s this hard to elect a Speaker, imagine how hard it’s going to be to pass any legislation,” Cornyn added… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[meetings this weeek]
TODAY
[BG PODCAST]
Bingham Group Week in Review (12.21.2022)
Bingham Group Associate Hannah Garcia and CEO A.J. catch-up on the short holiday week including:
Council staff picks; Official runoff election results (LINK TO FINAL RESULTS: bit.ly/3FMlZEv); and this week’s winter storm advisory
Episode 178
The BG Podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and Spotify
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