Review - HR 8070 Reported in House – FY 2025 NDAA

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee published their report on HR 8070, Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025. The reported bill includes two cybersecurity and two uncrewed aircraft system provision of potential interest here. The Committee completed their final markup of the bill on May 22^nd, 2024 and ordered the bill reported favorably by a strongly bipartisan vote of 57 to 1.

The bill’s provisions of potential interest here include:

• §902. Executive Agent for Countering Threats Posed by Small Unmanned Aircraft.

• §924. Establishment Of the Drone Corps as A Basic Branch of the Army.

• §1501. Authority to accept voluntary and uncompensated services from cybersecurity experts.

• §1502. Establishment of the Department of Defense Hackathon program.

The Committee Report includes the following cyber related discussions that may be of interest here:

• Connected Vehicle Cybersecurity Center (pg 50),

• Digital literacy at Army (pgs 52-3),

• Enhanced environment for Multi-Domain Operations Cybersecurity Testing (pg 54),

• Briefing on Cybersecurity Threats to Water Infrastructure (pg 296),

• Clarification and Deconfliction of Responsibilities for Cybersecurity Functions within the Department of Defense (pg 298), and

• Digital Reserves (pg 301).

Moving Forward

Last week, the House Rules Committee called for potential amendments to HR 8070 with an amendment deadline of close of business on May 31^st, 2024. To date there have been 1,259 proposed amendments submitted, 114 of those were submitted after the published deadline. To date there has been no meeting notice published for the Rules Committee to formulate the rule for the consideration of the bill.

Commentary

Normally, the approval of the reported version of the bill by a vote of 57 to 1, a strong show of bipartisan support for the bill, would mean that the bill would be expected to move smoothly through the floor consideration of the bill through a rule with various floor amendments being considered. In the 118^th Congress, however, this could mean that the provisions of bill do not adequately target the objectives of the more conservative members of the Republican caucus. In the last year, that has frequently meant that the Rules Committee could not craft a rule for consideration of the bill, or if such a rule was developed, would be effectively vetoed by a small number of Republicans voting no.

The bipartisan support for the current bill, could allow the Leadership to bring the bill to the floor under the suspension of the rules process and depend on a number of Democratic votes to pass the bill. Each time that happens, the support of Speaker Johnson by the Republican fringe is further eroded.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill and the report discussions, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8070-reported-in-house - subscription required.

Review - S 1443 Introduced – Border Counter UAS Activities

Earlier this month, Sen Lankford (R,OK) introduced S 1443, the Protecting the Border from Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act. The bill would require an interagency strategy for creating a unified posture on counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C–UAS) capabilities and protections at international borders of the United States. There is no spending authorized in the legislation.

Moving Forward

As I reported Monday, this bill is included in the agenda of today’s business meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This typically means that there is bipartisan support on the Committee for the bill, but there may be amendments made to the bill to appease concerns among certain members.

Commentary

Missing from this bill is any discussion of the legal constraints under which any C-UAS actions can be taken. While those legal restrictions only apply to UAS operating in US airspace, additional political and international legal constraints would apply to any over-the-boarder actions. There should have been an additional subsection added to the bill requiring GAO to prepare a report to Congress on the existing legal constraints on cross-border and wholly internal counter UAS operations.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, including a brief look at the potential political complexities facing effective C-UAS regulations, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1443-introduced - subscription required.

Review – DOT Unified Agenda and UAS Regulations

In the DOT portion of the Spring 2022 Unified Agenda that was published earlier this week there are four rulemakings listed that will influence critical infrastructure’s ability to protect their facilities from attacks by unmanned aerial systems, two in the final rule stage of rulemaking and two lingering on the Long-Term Actions page.

FAA	Final Rule Stage	Registration and Marking Requirements for Small Unmanned Aircraft	2120-AK82
FAA	Final Rule Stage	External Marking Requirement for Small Unmanned Aircraft	2120-AL32
FAA	Long-Term Actions	Safe and Secure Operations of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems	2120-AL26
FAA	Long-Term Actions	Prohibit or Restrict the Operation of an Unmanned Aircraft in Close Proximity to a Fixed Site Facility	2120-AL33

Commentary

These four rulemakings, if fully implemented, would make it easier for critical infrastructure facilities to limit the legal use of unmanned aerial systems above and in the immediate vicinity of their facilities. Unfortunately, other restrictions in 18 USC would still prohibit facility management from doing more than notifying the authorities about illegal aerial activity over or around their facilities. US law still specifically prohibits (with some very limited exceptions for national defense) interfering with the operation of an aircraft (including UAS) in US airspace. Even intercepting the communications between the UAS operator and the drone technically run afoul of several statutes.

Congress has given DOJ and DHS strictly limited authority to intercept drones, but that authority does not generally extend to privately owned facilities. Congress needs to take a hard look at the need for protecting critical infrastructure facilities from attacks like the recent attack on a Russian refinery. While that strike was probably made by the Ukrainian military, similar attacks could be executed by terrorist organizations who have become increasingly sophisticated in drone operations.

For more details on these rulemakings, see my article on CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/dot-unified-agenda-and-uas-regulations - subscription required.

S 4397 Introduced – Counter-Drone Support

Last week, Sen Lankford (R,OK) introduced S 4397, the Strengthening Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations (C-UAS) Partnerships Act. The bill would authorized DOD to provide C-UAS support under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. No new spending is authorized by this bill.

The bill would amend 10 USC 333(a) adding “Counter-unmanned aircraft systems operations.” To the list of operations for which DOD could provide training and equipment to foreign national security forces.

Moving Forward

Lankford is not a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there is probably not sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would draw organized opposition to the bill. I suspect that the bill would receive bipartisan support in Committee.

This bill could be added to either the National Defense Authorization Act or the FY 2023 DOD spending bill as an amendment from the floor.

Commentary

I do not see this bill, even if passed, having any significant impact on developing or providing C-UAS support for critical infrastructure in the United States. This will almost certainly be the last mention of this bill in this blog.