First responders warn that proposed country-of-origin drone ban might hinder life-saving operations and enhance prices for Texas businesses.
By DRONELIFE Options Editor Jim Magill
Greater than a dozen witnesses representing police, hearth and emergency response businesses, spoke out not too long ago in opposition to a invoice pending within the Texas state legislature that might ban the acquisition by authorities businesses of drones produced in China and different international locations deemed to be hostile to the U.S.
Home Invoice 41, sponsored by state Republican state Consultant Cole Hefner, would “prohibit a governmental entity from buying or utilizing an unmanned plane, or associated tools or companies,” produced by a rustic “recognized by the U.S. director of nationwide intelligence as a rustic that poses a danger to the nationwide safety of the US.” The invoice is essentially aimed toward China, which produces the overwhelming majority of drones utilized in each business and public security markets within the U.S.
The proposed laws is amongst a lot of comparable payments being thought-about in a lot of states, together with Missouri and Wisconsin. A number of states, most notably Florida, have already enacted comparable bans, concentrating on Chinese language-made drones.
At a latest listening to earlier than the Texas Home Committee on Homeland Safety, Public Security & Veterans’ Affairs, 16 witnesses testified in opposition to the invoice, in contrast with three witnesses in favor and three with impartial positions. One other 17 witnesses who had been scheduled to testify however didn’t converse on the listening to expressed opposition to the invoice, whereas six such witnesses had been in favor of the laws and 4 had been impartial.
Whereas many of the witnesses who spoke in opposition to the invoice expressed their assist of the acknowledged goals of the laws – guaranteeing that important knowledge collected by drones doesn’t discover its method into the arms of the Chinese language Communist Get together – they objected to the answer of issuing a country-of origin ban on the UAVs. A number of of the witnesses expressed considerations that in the event that they had been unable to entry drones produced by Chinese language firms comparable to DJI and Autel, they might be compelled to depend on much less succesful and dearer merchandise produced within the U.S. or allied nations.
“I’m right here to let you know that if we had been compelled as search and rescue practitioners to make use of solely the drones which can be provided right here in the US, individuals will die,” stated Kyle Nordfors UAS chairman for the Mountain Rescue Affiliation.
Eddy Saldivar, a captain within the metropolis of Arlington Fireplace Division, stated his division realized concerning the worth of DJI drones when making an attempt to carry out the rescue of a younger man who had been swept off the roadway right into a creek throughout a flash flood utilizing a non-DJI drone. “We referred to as for the drone and had been unable to launch that drone on account of it not having the ability to fly within the rain, and so it hindered our response. We searched and searched however we simply couldn’t discover the sufferer till was too late,” he stated.
“It’s possible that tonight or tomorrow there’s going to be a five-year-old or an eight-year-old autistic child that wanders off and within the pouring rain, and someplace on this state or this nation, we’re going to wish to exit and we’re going to wish to carry them house and, and the tools that we choose relies on these wants.”
The proposed laws establishes a five-year grace interval for governmental entities that entered right into a contract to purchase a drone or associated tools coated by the ban earlier than January 1 2026. The grace interval would permit the company to have the ability to proceed to make use of the in any other case prohibited tools till January 1, 2031. The invoice would additionally set up a grant program for legislation enforcement businesses to exchange current drone fleets that had been in use earlier than January 1 2026.
“The grant program is to help legislation enforcement in eradicating current drones in use that could be manufactured by firms beneath the management of adversarial nations and changing them with plane that aren’t,” stated Hefner, who serves as chair of the Homeland Safety Committee.
A number of audio system representing non-police emergency response businesses complained that the grant program needs to be prolonged to incorporate their businesses in addition to these of legislation enforcement.
“It’s doesn’t embrace something for these of us which can be responding on the hearth, emergency administration and EMS facet to wildfires, hurricanes, floods, search and rescue, hazmat response, hearth suppression, and simply normal hearth suppression,” stated Coitt Kessler, a retired Austin firefighter.
Witnesses testifying in favor of the invoice cited what they considered as potential nationwide safety considerations that might stem from the usage of Chinese language-made drones.
“We’re entrusted with defending Texans tax {dollars}, and we should cease utilizing these {dollars} to buy adversary {hardware},” stated Scott Shtofman, the affiliate vp and counsel for regulatory affairs for AUVSI. “We have to put money into American made-technology, which is quickly enhancing its manufacturing with main innovation.”
Jacqueline Deal, who testified on behalf of State Armor in favor the invoice, cited the actions taken by varied businesses of the federal authorities to limit the usage of Chinese language-made drones. “The Protection Division has listed DJI as a Chinese language navy firm, and it’s additionally been sanctioned by Treasury or Commerce, or each due to its function within the genocide in western China,” she stated.
“And we want to have the ability to have our personal {hardware} within the occasion of a warfare. That’s leverage or coercive strain from China,” Deal stated.
A number of of the lawmakers on the committee specific their considerations that knowledge collected by Chinese language-made drones probably might make its approach to China, the place it could possibly be used for nefarious functions by the Chinese language authorities. Nevertheless, a number of the audio system who fly drones of their operations stated they’ve taken steps to stop that from occurring, by protecting their drones air-gapped, or remoted from the web. In addition they really helpful the usage of third-party software program, produced by American firms comparable to Austin-based DroneSense, somewhat than counting on the producer’s software program to manage the drone.
“My advice permits us to make use of U.S.-based software program on overseas {hardware}. It’s no totally different than your iPhone that has Foxconn chips,” stated Rob Robertson a committee member and teacher for the Legislation Enforcement Drone Affiliation (LEDA).
Hefner and different members of the Homeland Safety Committee additional raised the problem that {hardware} embedded within the manufacturing of the Chinese language-made drones could possibly be remotely triggered to trigger issues for the end-user, however Robertson largely dismissed these considerations as nicely.
He famous that the 2025 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, which not too long ago was signed into legislation, mandated {that a} federal cybersecurity audit, particularly concentrating on DJI, be carried out. “That’s why my advice is that we delay this (invoice) and we rethink this when now we have the outcomes of that research,” he stated.
As as to whether DJI could be concealing the existence of a secret “Chinese language chip” able to performing some nefarious motion inside its drones, Robertson stated, “I can let you know sure, there’s all the time a chance. I can’t let you know there’s no method that this may occur, as a result of it could occur.”
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Jim Magill is a Houston-based author with nearly a quarter-century of expertise overlaying technical and financial developments within the oil and gasoline trade. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P International Platts, Jim started writing about rising applied sciences, comparable to synthetic intelligence, robots and drones, and the methods during which they’re contributing to our society. Along with DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared within the Houston Chronicle, U.S. Information & World Report, and Unmanned Techniques, a publication of the Affiliation for Unmanned Car Techniques Worldwide.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, knowledgeable drone companies market, and a fascinated observer of the rising drone trade and the regulatory atmosphere for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles targeted on the business drone area and is a global speaker and acknowledged determine within the trade. Miriam has a level from the College of Chicago and over 20 years of expertise in excessive tech gross sales and advertising for brand spanking new applied sciences.
For drone trade consulting or writing, E-mail Miriam.
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