Review – TSA Portion of FAA BVLOS NPRM

 Today, the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (90 FR 38212) on “Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight [BVLOS] Operations”. In an unusual move this rulemaking contains provisions from the DHS’ Transportation Security Administration (TSA) designed to “make complementary changes to its regulations to ensure it can continue to impose security measures on these operations under its current regulatory structure for civil aviation.” The preamble notes that: “While FAA and TSA are issuing a joint proposed rulemaking, the agencies intend to concurrently issue separate final rules.”

In this rulemaking the TSA is proposing to make changes to:

49 CFR 1540, Civil Aviation Security: General Rules, and

49 CFR 1544, Aircraft Operator Security: Air Carriers and Commercial Operators

Public Comments

The FAA and TSA are soliciting public comments on this NPRM. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #FAA-2025-1908). Comments should be submitted by October 6^th, 2025. This rulemaking is under an EO 14307 §4(a) deadline: “A final rule shall be published within 240 days of the date of this order [June 11^th, 2025], as appropriate.” That means that the final rule should be published by February 6^th, 2026. Note: Presidential deadlines are only slightly more enforceable that Congressional deadlines.

 

For more details about the provisions of this rulemaking, including a look at potential additional TSA security requirements, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-portion-of-faa-bvlos-nprm - subscription required