Review – Senate Passes First Cloture vote on HR 3935 – FAA Reauthorization

Yesterday, the Senate conducted their first cloture vote on HR 3935, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act. The vote to close debate on the motion to proceed to consideration of the bill passed by a vote of 89 to 10, with the opposition evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. With the debate officially begun, the proposed amendments started to flow, with 33 amendments offered. The actual vote on proceeding to consider HR 3935 takes place today.

The first important amendment is SA 1911, the substitute language offered by Sen Cantrell (D,WA). While this would typically be language from the Senate version of the bill (S 1939 in this case), a quick look at the table of contents on both shows way more stuff (and a slightly different organization) in the SA 1911 language. So we can, for all practical purposes, ignore S 1939.

There were 32 additional amendments proposed yesterday (listed here and here). One of those may be of interest here: SA 1932 which was proposed by Sen Peters (D,MI). It would add a new §1112, Counter UAS Authorities to the legislation. This would completely rewrite 6 USC 124n, Protection of certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft. This amendment is very similar to S 1631 introduced by Peters in May of 2023. No action has been taken on that bill to date.

More debate on the bill has taken place today, including a vote on the actual motion to begin consideration (it passed). I will have more details on today’s vote and new amendments tomorrow (have to wait for the Congressional Record to be printed for those amendments).

 

For more details about the cybersecurity and UAS provision of SA 1911, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/senate-passes-first-cloture-vote - subscription required.