CEA, Aerospace Industry Push FAA for ‘Expedited’ Action on Drones
CEA President Gary Shapiro and his counterpart at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Marion Blakey, want Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Huerta to throw his weight behind the “expedited consideration and approval” of a long-delayed rulemaking regulating the safe use of “small unmanned aircraft systems” (UASs) -- what many call “drones” -- in U.S. airspace, they told Huerta in a joint letter Wednesday.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
It’s not often that AIA and CEA write the government seeking “additional regulation,” they conceded. But in this case, “American entrepreneurs and businesses cannot realize the tremendous benefits and efficiencies” that UASs will afford unless the rulemaking goes forward, they said. Small UASs “can be safely operated in domestic airspace,” they said. “But only after issuance of the proposed rule can we begin a transparent dialogue between government, industry, users and other interested parties to allow the safe use of these systems by American businesses.” Aviation hobbyists are already free under the law to fly small UASs for recreational purposes, they said. “Only American businesses are being held back awaiting this rule.”
That the issue is “of extreme importance to both associations” is what prompted them to take “the unusual step of signing a joint letter,” said Dan Stohr, AIA communications director, in a cover email Thursday accompanying the letter sent to Huerta. As for CEA, “we came together with AIA with a shared interest in this area,” Doug Johnson, CEA vice president-technology policy, told us in an interview Thursday. At the last CES, the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall featured “an increasing number of exhibitors related to drones on the consumer side,” Johnson said. CEA members “also have interests on the commercial side, in some cases,” Johnson said, citing last year’s 60 Minutes report on how Amazon has begun testing drones in its supply chain. “There’s certainly industry activity and interest on both the consumer and commercial sides of drones.”
CEA “has a shared interest with AIA, and other parties, of course, to begin the public comment process” on small UASs, he said. “We're not commenting on the various issues related to drone use, merely the importance of giving the public an opportunity to comment on this.” CEA “may eventually” have specific policy recommendations to make to the FAA, “but not at this time,” Johnson said. “Our focus right now is to get the process moving forward so that we can have the opportunity to comment. The importance here again, from the CEA side, is to support an appropriate policy environment for new and emerging technology. This is something we do frequently at CEA. It’s something we're especially interested in with respect to new technology and companies that are interested in this market.”
As to how the idea came together to send the FAA a joint letter, Johnson said AIA and CEA came to know each other when they both served on the FAA’s advisory committee for in-flight use of portable electronic devices. “They saw us, and we see them, as a partner for the purposes of this letter with shared interests in both the aviation and technology industry side.” As for how long the rulemaking has been delayed at the FAA and why, Johnson deferred to AIA, which he said has been monitoring the issue for far longer than CEA. AIA representatives didn’t immediately comment.