Review - 2022 Fall Unified Agenda – DOT - FAA and Drones

As I noted earlier this week, the Biden Administration published the now misnamed 2022 Fall Unified Agenda. Instead of looking at Department of Transportation rulemakings en mass I will be looking at them from an issue perspective. First, I will look at the Federal Aviation Administration and unmanned aviation systems (UAS, or drones).

There are no rulemakings in the current Unified Agenda and there are six rulemakings listed Long-Term Agenda:

FAA	Registration and Marking Requirements for Small Unmanned Aircraft	2120-AK82
FAA	Unmanned Aircraft Systems Expanded Operations	2120-AL01
FAA	Safe and Secure Operations of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems	2120-AL26
FAA	External Marking Requirement for Small Unmanned Aircraft	2120-AL32
FAA	Prohibit or Restrict the Operation of an Unmanned Aircraft in Close Proximity to a Fixed Site Facility	2120-AL33
FAA	Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations Using Special Airworthiness	2120-AL82

No actions are being contemplated in the near term on the above listed rulemakings.

Commentary

The FAA continues to punt on its statutory requirement {PL 114-190 Section 2209 (130 STAT. 634)} to publish a rule to “establish a process to allow applicants to petition the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to prohibit or restrict the operation of an unmanned aircraft in close proximity to a fixed site facility”. This was supposed to have been accomplished by January 11^th, 2017, now almost six years late.

Now this restricted airspace regulation would not solve the potential problem of UAS flying over or attacking critical infrastructure. There are still significant federal statutes and regulations that prohibit taking actions against aircraft that will have to be modified by Congress before protective actions can be taken. But, having said that, providing legal restrictions against UAS intruding on critical infrastructure would at least allow law enforcement to take actions against operators violating those restrictions.

For more details about these rulemakings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/2022-fall-unified-agenda-dot-faa - subscription required.