Hearing Report: House Committee Stresses It Is Time to Pass Expanded Counter-UAS Legislation

July 15, 2025

The House Homeland Security Committee’s Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee held a hearing titled “Surveillance, Sabotage, and Strikes: Industry Perspectives on How Drone Warfare Abroad Is Transforming Threats at Home” this morning. The witnesses included:

Tom Walker, Founder and CEO, DroneUP, LLC.;
Brett Feddersen, Vice President, Strategy & Government Affairs, D-Fend Solutions;
Church Hutton, Chief Growth Officer, AeroVironment, Inc.; and
Michael Robbins, President and CEO, Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International

Subcommittee Chair Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) in his opening statement pointed to the increasing number of reports of unauthorized drone activity near airports and other critical infrastructure, and the potential for a coordinated attack. Other Subcommittee members mentioned specific incidents, including alleged sightings of drone swarms last fall in New Jersey or the collision of a drone with a search and rescue helicopter in Texas last week.

During the hearing, both Subcommittee members and the four witnesses stressed the importance of expanding counter-UAS authorities, which were last addressed in legislation in 2018. Since that time, the number of drones operating in the U.S. has expanded exponentially. Witnesses and members agreed that the time to pass proactive counter-UAS legislation is now, instead of reacting after an incident occurs. Each of the witnesses’ statements provided numerous recommendations for the Committee to consider.

As a reminder, last year, the House Homeland Security Committee, in conjunction with the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Judiciary Committees, introduced bipartisan legislation--H.R. 8610, Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act--to reform and expand current C-UAS legal authorities. That bill recommended the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develop a framework to address drone threats in the airport environment and at other critical infrastructure facilities, required FAA to deploy UAS detection systems at certain airports, provided FAA and DHS with the authority to use a mitigation system to protect any airport against a persistent threat, and permitted counter-UAS mitigation pilots under certain conditions. While this AAAE-supported legislation was not enacted into law last year, we expect the same three House Committees to reintroduce similar legislation this year.

According to the witnesses, the industry already has counter-UAS technologies to detect, track, identify, and mitigate, which the FAA has been testing and evaluating since 2019. These technologies can distinguish between authorized and unauthorized drones, provide much better air domain awareness than we currently have, and prohibit a drone from operating in an area it should not be in (e.g., airports, stadiums, military facilities, or nuclear facilities).

Chair Gimenez asked if airports have the authority “to bring down a drone” that is interfering in their airspace currently. Robbins responded that an airport did not. Only four federal agencies (DHS, DOJ, DOE, and DOD) currently have limited authority to disrupt or disable a rogue drone, and they must follow a very specific Secretary-approved process to do so. All witnesses agreed that this needs to be expanded so that state and local law enforcement have the authority to react to a drone, to identify its intent (hostile or not), and react accordingly. Until Congress extends detection and mitigation authorities, “state and local law enforcement, airport and prison operators, and other critical infrastructure entities are left watching and waiting while unauthorized drones fly overhead”. At best, they can help identify the drone operator. All four witnesses also stressed the importance of providing law enforcement with appropriate technologies and vigorous training on how to use this technology if authorities are expanded.

More Information:

Link to hearing
Witness statements