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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) says the Senate will act Wednesday on a bipartisan bill to provide state and local authorities with authority and resources to track down mysterious drones that have been spotted in New Jersey, New York and other states, causing a national uproar.
Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, said federal authorities don’t have enough staff and resources to track all the drones that have been seen hovering over Northeastern cities.
“The utter confusion surrounding these drone sightings shows that the feds cannot respond on their own. The federal government needs help from local officials who spot these drones,” he said.
He said the bill, which he sponsored with Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) on the Homeland Security Committee, would allow local law enforcement agencies to work more closely with the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration to track drones.
“This afternoon I will be coming to the Senate to stand with Senator Peters to adopt legislation to respond to recent reports of unusual drone activity. I am proud to co-sponsor this bipartisan legislation, which is supported by the FBI, DHS, DOD and the FAA,” Schumer announced to the room, referring to the federal departments and agencies tasked with protecting the nation’s airspace.
“The Senate should pass our bill without delay,” he said.
Schumer explained that the legislation would explicitly authorize state and local authorities to conduct drone surveillance and help them better coordinate with federal law enforcement agencies.
“The federal government needs help from local officials to spot these drones. But right now, residents don’t have the authority or the resources to act. Our bill will fix that. Every federal agency involved says they need local help,” he said. say
Schumer said drones are “everywhere,” posing a serious challenge to policymakers and law enforcement agencies.
“You don’t want to tell people they can’t fly drones for recreational use and a lot of other commercial uses. So it’s a difficult area and we don’t have broad federal legislation … on drones, even though we say that they can’t be near airports and near military installations,” he said.
President Biden told reporters this week that his administration is “looking into” drone activity, but claimed the unidentified aerial vehicles are “Nothing sinister apparently” and pose no danger.
President-elect Trump has accused the Biden administration of hiding what it knows from the public and has suggested that shoot down the dronesa measure that experts say poses its own risks to public safety.
The FBI has received tips from more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in recent weeks, and the federal government is supporting state and local officials in investigating some of the reports.
The Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the FAA and the Department of Defense issued a statement earlier this week describing the sightings so far as a “combination of legal commercial drones, hobbyist drones and enforcement drones of the law, as well as manned fixed-wing. planes, helicopters and stars were wrongly reported as drones.”
But some lawmakers on Capitol Hill were unsettled by those statements.
Rep. Nancy Mace (RS.C.) has raised the possibility that drones could be operated by the nation’s adversaries — Russia, China and Iran — or even come from outer space.
“My concern is, if it’s not a craft from outer space, because I think that has to be on the table. That has to be an option: Is it our technology? Or is it Russia, Iran or China? There is someone winning the arms race and we’re behind? Mace said in an interview with Outkick.
