OMB Approves Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations NPRM

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved a notice of proposed rulemaking from the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on “FAA and TSA Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations”. The rulemaking was submitted to OIRA on May 13^th, 2025.

According to the Fall 2024 Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking:

“This action would normalize certain low altitude unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations, while ensuring the safety and efficiency of the United States airspace. It is the next step in integrating UAS into the national airspace system (NAS), providing for significant safety, societal, and economic advantages and benefits. This action is expected to dramatically expedite the introduction of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAS operations in the NAS. Using consensus-based standards, this action would establish a regulatory process for issuing a special airworthiness certificate (SAC) for unmanned aircraft (up to 1,320 pounds), as well as the acceptance of their associated elements. It would create new operational and design requirements for unmanned aircraft issued a SAC, enabling routine beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations without waivers or exemptions. The rulemaking would prescribe a new BVLOS rating for the remote pilot certificate. It would also build new operating rules for UAS cargo delivery for compensation or hire under the new part. Finally, this action would create a defined regulatory approval pathway for third-party services, to include UAS Traffic Management (UTM) service suppliers.”

It is interesting that OIRA’s announcement added the words “FAA and TSA” to the title of the rulemaking that were not included when it was submitted. First off, with FAA and TSA coming under different cabinet level agencies (DOT and DHS) there is no unified agency to coordinate the implementation and enforcement of the final rule. This is the reason that we typically see two agencies work up a memorandum of understanding about who has responsibility for the rulemaking process. Secondly, the TSA would theoretically be concerned about security issues related to UAS operations and there has been no discussion to date about any such issues (though, to be fair, it would not be hard to come up with some legitimate concerns).

I had not been intending to cover this rulemaking in any depth in this blog, but if there are UAS security issues included, that may change, depending on the cybersecurity implications of such proposed regulations.