New Executive Orders Chart Bold Path for U.S. Drone Innovation and Airspace Security

June 8, 2025

Originally published New Executive Orders Chart Bold Path for U.S. Drone Innovation and Airspace Security on June 9, 2025 03:42 by https://www.hstoday.us/featured/new-executive-orders-chart-bold-path-for-u-s-drone-innovation-and-airspace-security/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-executive-orders-chart-bold-path-for-u-s-drone-innovation-and-airspace-security at Homeland Security

The recent Presidential Executive Orders regarding drones, Advanced Air Mobility, and Counter UAS are a critical step to send a strong leadership message with a roadmap for innovation, Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), autonomous flight, and countering drones used for nefarious intent.

As summarized by Mark Bathrick, former director of Aviation for the Department of Interior, who started DOI’s drone fleet, the Executive Order titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” focuses “on advancing U.S. drone capabilities by accelerating integration into the National Airspace System, supporting domestic manufacturing, streamlining regulatory processes, and promoting American drone exports. It mandates swift regulatory updates to enable Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, deploy AI-assisted waiver approvals, establish an eVTOL pilot program, strengthen the American drone industrial base, and prioritize U.S.-made drones in defense procurement. Additionally, it directs agencies to secure supply chains from foreign risks and expand market access for American drone technology.“

The Executive Order titled “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” focuses “on protecting U.S. airspace from threats posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), especially unauthorized drone operations by criminal organizations, terrorists, and foreign actors. Key provisions include:

Federal Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty
Stricter Airspace Restrictions
Enhanced Detection & Tracking of Drones
Stronger Enforcement Against Illegal Drone Operations
Protection of Mass Gatherings & Large Events
Counter-UAS Capacity Building
Improved Airspace Notifications
Risk-Based Assessment for Airspace Protection.“

First and a key element is the rapid process outlined for the issuance of the long awaited FAA BVLOS (Part 108) Rule which will hopefully allow for more flexible rules that will allow the acceleration of autonomous flight for public safety and every vertical which will lead to innovation, commercialization, work force development and a new era of drones.

Use of AI to accelerate waivers will help all sectors to get waivers more quickly and operationalize many new drone operations.

Strengthening the American drone industry is an important aspect to help American drone companies be competitive in the areas of cost and capability. Ideally, this will be accompanied by federal subsidies to help level the playing field for American companies.

The counter-drone aspect clearly aligns federal agencies and gives direction toward a National Counter-UAS Training Center. This, along with grant funding for state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement, is very important to establish a standardized approach similar to how bomb technicians are trained and funding to carry this forward. However, effective Counter UAS will require Congress to provide advanced detection and eventually mitigation authorities to SLTT to address the threats that are already in the U.S. such as contraband dropped into prisons and the use of drones by cartels. A previous article in HSToday gives a broader insight into these threats.

Read the full Executive Orders here and here.

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Originally published Homeland Security