House aviation subcommittee hears bipartisan push to speed counter‑drone rules, expand airport detection and mitigation

At a House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation hearing, lawmakers and industry and academic witnesses discussed gaps in U.S. authority and technology for detecting and mitigating unauthorized unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly called drones, and urged faster FAA rulemaking and clearer, federally coordinated authority for local responses.

Chairman Nells opened the hearing by thanking investigators and first responders in two recent fatal aviation accidents and by turning to the day’s topic: “Unmanned aircraft systems, UAS, also known as drones, are extremely popular among the American people. So much so that there are more than 1,000,000 drones registered with the FAA,” he said. He and members of both parties described rapid growth in drone use and repeated examples in which airports and federal partners confronted undocumented or confusing UAS activity.

The subcommittee’s witnesses detailed three linked problems: (1) how to detect and identify drones reliably; (2) how to mitigate dangerous or unlawful flights without harming people, property or other aircraft; and (3) how to speed testing, approvals and training so mitigation tools can be used safely.

“UAS are aircraft and have the same protections as manned aircraft,” said Cathy Cahill, director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, summing up a legal foundation that restricts who may interfere with flight. Cahill warned that many mitigation techniques raise multiple federal legal issues and said the existing authority to conduct counter‑UAS (CUAS) mitigation has been limited to a handful of federal…