Senators Unveil Temporary Drone Laws, May Bode Well For Amazon, Google

(Source: Forbes)  

Two U.S. Senators are ready to introduce a bill before Congress that will look to establish temporary rules to regulate and manage the nascent commercial drone industry, according to congressional sources.

On Tuesday afternoon, Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, and John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, will introduce the Commercial UAS Modernization Act, a bill that will set guidelines for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or UAVs), whose widespread commercial use is currently banned by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA currently allows for businesses to apply for an exemption to operate drones on a case-by-base basis, though it could take several years for the governing body to establish permanent rules.

FORBES, after obtaining an earlier copy of the bill, previously reported that Booker was planning to unveil the legislation in late March, though sources close to the New Jersey senator’s office said it took time to refine the document’s language and specifics. Those who have seen the newest version of the bill said it was motivated in part to prevent the U.S. from falling further behind other countries in the commercial drone space. To date, companies like Amazon.com and Google have created test facilities overseas in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom because of their inability to experiment with drones in the U.S.

As a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety and Security, Booker has been an outspoken critic of the FAA and the pace by which it has addressed the rapidly evolving drone industry.

“This is what is hard for me to believe–the slowness at which this country is moving,” said Booker at a subcommittee meeting in March.

Those comments came a month after the FAA proposed draft regulations that, once passed, would allow for the commercial flying of UAVs under 500 feet, in daylight and within “visual line-of-sight” of an operator. Observers, however, noted that it could take up to two years for the FAA to finalize those rules, leaving many potential drone operators–from farmers who want to monitor their crops to builders hoping to map a construction site–in limbo as they wait for regulatory approval.

Booker and Hoeven’s legislation hopes to be a stopgap for the interim period as the FAA measures and debates its legislation. Those that have seen the bill said it plans to create a deputy administrator position for the integration of unmanned aircraft, which will report to the head of the FAA and the Secretary of Transportation.

The legislation will also help to streamline current regulatory processes that inhibit UAV innovation, as exemplified by a recent issue with Amazon. In March, the company, after almost a year of waiting, was granted an airworthiness certificate that applied to only one of its drone models. In the time it took for Amazon to receive approval of that model, the company had deemed that particular device outdated.

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