Last month, Sen Scott (R,FL) introduced S 473, the American
Security Drone Act of 2023. The bill includes various measures to reduce the
use of drones made in certain countries (primarily China) from being bought,
used, or operated by agencies of the Federal government. It also outlines a
‘government-wide’ policy on drone acquisition, which includes cybersecurity
language. No spending is authorized by this bill.
Moving Forward
Scott and two of his six cosponsors {Sen Blumenthal (D,CT)
and Sen Hawley (R,MO)} are members of the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee to which this bill was assigned for
consideration. This should mean that there is sufficient influence to see this
bill considered in Committee.
The main problem facing this bill is the fact that the
government is finding more and more uses for non-military unmanned aircraft and
the largest manufacturer of these craft is a Chinese company. Finding the requisite
unmanned aircraft from non-Chinese manufacturers is currently difficult. A bill
like this is needed to provide domestic manufacturers a much-needed edge to
favorably compete with the Chinese, but it will take time to build up the
requisite capacity.
It will be interesting to see how this bill works its way through
the Committee backrooms.
For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my
article at CFSN Detailed Analysis – https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-473-introduced
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