America’s Drone Policy is Splintered
Capitol and Capital is a Think Big series on the businesses engaging state and federal capitals to shape policy.
More and more, my colleagues at Think Big are focusing on the myriad issues associated with policy related to drones. After what seems like countless meetings and water cooler discussions, my position is this: nearly every company lobbying or engaging on drone policy is looking at this without seeing the whole chess board.
The problem is that "drone policy" has splintered into three separate fights in Washington, and my concern is that some companies do not realize which of these actually impact their business.
Fight One is commercial airspace integration. In other words, how do commercial drones operate in the airspace controlled by the FAA? Amazon, Wing, Zipline, and all companies chasing the ability to conduct deliveries by drone have been pushing the FAA for years to finalize Part 108 of the federal aviation regulations. In layman’s terms, companies are looking for a framework to allow commercial operators to fly beyond a pilot's line of sight, rather than requiring a special exemption every time a drone flies.
Fight Two is the defense industrial base. The Ukraine war exposed a hard truth: the United States cannot manufacture drones at the scale a modern conflict requires. The Department of War's (DoW) Replicator Initiative was launched in 2023 to close that gap by fielding thousands of low-cost autonomous drones inside two years. We’re now two years into the initiative and have only fielded hundreds (not thousands). Meanwhile, restrictions on Chinese-made drones like DJI are expanding at the same time American commercial operators remain dependent on that same Chinese hardware.
Add in overlapping authority across DoW, Commerce, Treasury, and multiple congressional oversight committees, and every drone company has to lobby four or five doors just to get a hearing on a single question. The result is a fight where everyone claims to agree on the goal and no one can agree on the path.
Fight Three is addressing counter-drone measures over critical infrastructure facilities. To me, this is the single most important issue related to drones that can and will impact Americans. Utilities, airports, refineries, stadiums, prisons, and state and local governments are pushing Congress to expand counter-drone authority. As it currently stands, only a handful of federal agencies are certified to actually address rogue drones. What’s worse, almost none are.
Right now, the company that owns the facility can watch a drone fly over it and call the police. That is very nearly the end of what it may lawfully do. Interfering with the aircraft is a federal crime, and the detection systems that actually work by reading the drone's radio signal put the company crosswise with the federal wiretap and pen register statutes.
These three fights are actively working against each other. More commercial drones flying legally means more legitimate traffic that counter-drone operators have to identify from real threats. Every ban on Chinese-made drones raises operating costs for the same delivery companies trying to scale. And every new counter-drone authority raises the odds that a utility jams a legitimate Amazon delivery that may have inadvertently drifted over its substation. A win in one fight quietly makes the other two harder.
And to be clear, this isn't just a Washington problem. States are moving on all three fights. Michigan, Florida, and Louisiana have all written their own rules rather than wait for Congress. Louisiana, for example, became the first state to authorize counter-drone technology. Each state that acts creates a new battleground where the same coalitions have to engage all over again, sometimes to defend positions they already won in Washington.
That is why so many government affairs and public affairs teams are spending money in the wrong room. The questions worth asking are simpler than most executives realize: Which of the three fights actually determines your business? Are you investing dollars in the fight you think you're in, or the one that actually governs your exposure? Where do these fights intersect for you, and who is speaking on your behalf?
Answering those questions requires expertise that spans all three fights. If any of these are keeping you up at night, bring us the question. In the coming weeks, Think Big will be launching a new National Security and Crisis Preparedness practice that is primed to help you figure out where you are exposed and where your advocacy dollars actually belong.
—Aaron Walker, Managing Director, Strategic Communications, Think Big
