Earlier this month, Sen Grassley (R,IA) introduced S 157, the Drone Act of 2023. The bill would revise 18 USC to expand the coverage of the criminal code for misuse of unmanned aircraft. No funding is provided in this bill. The language is very similar to S 3542 introduced in the 117th Congress.
Moving Forward
Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there should be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. Since the bill has four Democrats as cosponsors, the bill should receive some level of bipartisan support, but there should be some opposition from the UAV industry. I suspect that the bill would pass in Committee, but there could be significant changes made in the process.
This bill is not important enough to move to the floor of the Senate under regular order and there should be enough opposition to prevent it from being considered under the unanimous consent process. There is a chance that the bill could be included in some larger piece of legislation or offered as an amendment to another bill.
Commentary
The new Intrusion
on Protected Spaces offense includes an interesting provision. It includes
‘rules, regulations, and orders’ of DHS as types of Federal Law that could be
used to establish areas where UAVs could be prohibited. There is not currently
any specific authority for DHS to establish such areas beyond the very
constrained authorization in 6
USC 124n(k)(3)(C)(i) limited to federal facilities protected by DHS.
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1 comment:
The people letting criminals cross the border, and springing felons from jail, and erasing the lower limits for felony offenses. Suddenly have an interest in the criminal code. For drones. So much irony there that this post should develop rust.
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