Review – HR 1907 Introduced – Private cUAS

Last month Rep Burchett (R,TN) introduced HR 1907, the Defense Against Drones Act of 2025. The bill would allow an individual to use a shot gun to shoot down an unmanned aircraft flying no more than 200 feet over their property. No new funding is authorized by this legislation.

The bill would amend 49 USC by adding a new §44815, Protection of private property from unmanned aircraft.

Moving Forward

Burchett is a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which the bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there could be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I do not expect that the leadership would be interested in expanding the current, very limited, counter UAS statutes in this manner.

Commentary

While the bill specifically requires continued adherence to State law (but not local regulations?) about discharge of fire arms, it does not address the current prohibition of aircraft piracy (49 USC 46502) or destruction of aircraft (18 USC 32). For this proposed statute to be effective it would require the additions of ‘not withstanding’ language for each of those sections.

 

For more information on the provisions of the bill, as well as an expanded commentary looking at making the language applicable to industrial property, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-1907-introduced - subscription required.

Review - Bills Introduced – 3-6-25

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate preparing to leave Washington for a three-day weekend, there were 120 bills introduced. Two of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 1907 To allow an individual to shoot an unmanned aircraft flying over property owned by the individual under certain circumstances, and for other purposes. Burchett, Tim [Rep.-R-TN-2]

S 908 A bill to require the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the United States Trade Representative, to develop and finalize a vaccination strategy for poultry. Rounds, Mike [Sen.-R-SD]

 

For more information on these bills, including legislative history for similar bills in the 118th, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-3-6-25 - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 04-05-17

As the House and Senate get ready to take their two-week Easter break there were 109 bills introduced yesterday. Only one of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1907 To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct research and development to mitigate the consequences of threats to voting systems, to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require the voting systems used in elections for Federal office to comply with national standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for operational security and ballot verification, to establish programs to promote research in innovative voting system technologies, and for other purposes. Rep. Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. [D-GA-4]

Voting systems are not really control systems so they really fall outside of my normal cybersecurity coverage. It will be interesting, however, to see how the bill defines ‘operational security’.