Review – S 905 Introduced – Drone Zoning

Last month, Sen Lee (R,UT) introduced S 905, the Drone Integration and Zoning Act. The bill would provide for State and local government authority over ‘civil unmanned aircraft systems’ within 200-ft above the ground. Currently, sole jurisdiction over US airspace rest with the Federal Aviation Administration. This bill is very similar to S 600 introduced last session, and S 2607 which Lee introduced in the 116^th Congress. No action was taken on either bill.

Moving Forward

Lee is not a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that Lee no longer has the influence to see the bill considered in Committee. Of course, when he did have the potential influence in the last session, the bill was not considered. This is almost certainly due to the fairly radical change that this bill makes with respect to the regulation of the national airspace, designating areas over which the FAA does not have regulatory authority over aircraft operations.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-905-introduced - subscription required.

HR 3684 Debate in Senate – 8-2-21

The Senate continued their debate of HR 3684, the INVEST in America Act. There were 163 new amendments proposed. There were votes on three amendments; two were adopted and one rejected. None of those amendments were of specific interest here. The Debate continues today.

New Amendments

Two of the 163 amendments introduced yesterday may be of interest here. They were:

SA 2209 (pg S 5614) introduced by Sen Cornyn (R,TX). It would add a new subtitle to Division G, Title IV, the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act. This is very similar to S 658 that was introduced in April and reported favorably by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in June.

SA 2269 (pg S5671) introduced by Sen Lee (R,UT). It would add a new division, Drone Integration and Zoning. This is very similar to S 600 that was introduced in April. No action has been taken on that bill.

S 600 Introduced - Drone Integration and Zoning Act

Last month Sen Lee (R,UT) introduced S 600, the Drone Integration and Zoning Act. The bill would provide for State and authority over ‘civil unmanned aircraft systems’ within 200-ft above the ground. Currently, sole jurisdiction over US airspace rest with the Federal Aviation Administration. This bill is nearly identical to S 2607 that was introduced by Lee in the last session, no action was taken on the earlier bill.

Moving Forward

Lee is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that he may have enough influence to have this bill considered in Committee. Because this bill makes a fundamental change in the regulation of aircraft operations in the United States, I suspect that there will be substantial bipartisan opposition to this bill. I do not expect to see the bill considered in Committee and it would certainly not make it to the floor of the Senate.

Commentary

The single largest problem with this bill is that while it gives some regulatory and enforcement authority to State, local governments, and tribal governments, it does not provide an exception to numerous federal regulations that would be violated by interfering with the operation of an unmanned aircraft system in flight. Thus, the regulatory authority provided by this bill would severely limited by the inability to enforce those regulations upon an aircraft in flight.

Until a consensus is reached about when and how a UAS differs from aircraft operated by a pilot inside the aircraft and how that would allow for lawful seizer of control of the aircraft in flight, most attempts at regulating where and when UAS operate are going to be doomed to failure.

Bills Introduced – 3-4-21

Yesterday, with just the Senate in session, there were 28 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

S 600 A bill to prescribe zoning authority with respect to commercial unmanned aircraft systems and to preserve State, local, and Tribal authorities and private property with respect to unmanned aircraft systems, and for other purposes. Sen. Lee, Mike [R-UT]

This sounds like it would be similar to S 2607 introduced by Lee in the last session. That bill died after it was introduced.