Review – HR 6042 Introduced – LANDED Act

Last month Rep Smith (R,NJ) introduced HR 6042, the Law Against Nefarious Drones, Enforcement, Deconfliction (LANDED) Act. The bill would provide authorization for state and local law enforcement personnel to conduct counter unmanned aircraft systems (cUAS) operations to mitigate a credible threats posed by an unmanned aircraft system. While the bill includes a new grant program, no new funding is authorized by the legislation.

HR 6042 is similar to HR 10555, the Law Against Nefarious Drones, Enforcement, Deconfliction (LANDED) Act, that was introduced by Smith in December 2024. No action was taken on that bill in the 118th Congress.

Moving Forward

Smith is not a member of the House Judiciary Committee to which this bill was assigned for primary consideration. This means that there is little chance that there will be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I do not expect that Judiciary Committee would favorably consider this bill in any case because it glosses over too many of the issues related to countering UAS in the national airspace.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, as well as a commentary on the DOD IG UAS report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-6042-introduced-landed-act - subscription required.