NAAA joined in a letter to Congress last week urging members of the federal legislative branch to make needed changes to federal aviation statutes allowing the FAA to regulate model and hobby drone users. In 2012, as part of the last FAA reauthorization legislation enacted by Congress, language was included that prohibits the FAA from “promulgate[ing] any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft.”

This language has limited the FAA’s ability to fully regulate model and hobby drone users, putting manned aircraft users at risk. In fact, in May, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that FAA’s registration requirement for recreational UAVs contradicts the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act. The registry was designed to better hold drone users accountable for their operations by having a system to determine the number of drones and their owners’ locations. The DC Circuit Court summarized its decision by stating, “Congress is of course always free to repeal or amend its 2012 prohibition on FAA rules regarding model aircraft. Perhaps Congress should do so. Perhaps not. In any event, we must follow the statute as written.”

NAAA currently serves on an FAA Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) advising the agency on drone identification and tracking policies. It is possible, because of this recreational drone regulatory exemption language in the 2012 FAA reauthorization bill that was enacted, that tracking and identification requirements would not be allowed for recreational drones, a significant portion of users within the entire drone user population, thereby continuing to keep manned aircraft users at risk.

In the letter NAAA joined in last week it stated and requested of Congress that “The current lack of ability to regulate model and hobby operations imposes a higher degree of risk to manned operations than is acceptable to our respective organizations. We are asking congress to give the FAA the ability to regulate all drones that weigh 0.55 pounds or more. We urge you to take action now, before we have an event that causes harm to the people that rely on air transportation.”