HR 2944 Introduced – Misuse of Drones

Rep Gallagher (R,WI) introduced HR 2944, the Drone Act of 2023. The bill would revise 18 USC to expand the coverage of the criminal code for misuse of unmanned aircraft. No funding is provided in this bill. The bill is almost identical to S 157 [removed from paywall], that was introduced in February. No action has been taken on the Senate bill to date.

There is one significant difference between the two bills. The House bill does not include the subclause that was added to the language from S 3542 (117^th session) that would specifically make a drone attack on critical infrastructure an offense under the new 18 USC 40B proposed in the bill.

Moving Forward

While Gallagher is not a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to which the bill was assigned for consideration, one of cosponsors {Rep Gooding (R,TX)} is a member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. There will be some level of bipartisan support for the bill, but it is not clear that it would be sufficient to overcome the objections of the UAV industry. I do not believe that the bill would receive enough support to pass a cloture vote in the full Senate.

Review - S 157 Introduced – Misuse of Drones

Earlier this month, Sen Grassley (R,IA) introduced S 157, the Drone Act of 2023. The bill would revise 18 USC to expand the coverage of the criminal code for misuse of unmanned aircraft. No funding is provided in this bill. The language is very similar to S 3542 introduced in the 117^th Congress.

Moving Forward

Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there should be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. Since the bill has four Democrats as cosponsors, the bill should receive some level of bipartisan support, but there should be some opposition from the UAV industry. I suspect that the bill would pass in Committee, but there could be significant changes made in the process.

This bill is not important enough to move to the floor of the Senate under regular order and there should be enough opposition to prevent it from being considered under the unanimous consent process. There is a chance that the bill could be included in some larger piece of legislation or offered as an amendment to another bill.

Commentary

The new Intrusion on Protected Spaces offense includes an interesting provision. It includes ‘rules, regulations, and orders’ of DHS as types of Federal Law that could be used to establish areas where UAVs could be prohibited. There is not currently any specific authority for DHS to establish such areas beyond the very constrained authorization in 6 USC 124n(k)(3)(C)(i) limited to federal facilities protected by DHS.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-157-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 1-31-23

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 109 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

S 157 A bill to prevent the misuse of drones, and for other purposes. Grassley, Chuck [Sen.-R-IA]

Mention in Passing

There are three House Resolutions that I would like to mention in passing:

H Res 76 Removing a certain Member from a certain standing committee of the House. Miller, Max L. [Rep.-R-OH-7] 

H Res 79 Electing Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives. Lieu, Ted [Rep.-D-CA-36]

H Res 80 Electing Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives. Scalise, Steve [Rep.-R-LA-1]

H Res 79 and H Res 80 elected Democrats and Republicans respectively to a variety of House Committees. I have not seen the list yet, but H Res 79 included adding Rep Omar (D,MN) to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. H Res 76 is the promised Republican response to remove her from that Committee due to her antisemitic comments. News reports (including here) have the House considering H Res 76 today. It is not clear at this point if there will be enough votes in the House to remove Omar from that Committee assignment.

The vote on H Res 76 will be the first measure (certainly not the last) of how much control Rep McCarthy (R,CA) has as Speaker. Failure to pass this resolution will signal that moderate Republicans are not afraid of opposing McCarthy, or his more conservative ‘supporters’. Passage of the resolution will show that the conservative wing of the House Republicans is going to have substantial control of the legislative agenda in the 118^th Congress.