Federal Aviation Administration

Finally, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to releasing rules to integrate drones into the American airspace by early 2015, the Associated Press' Joan Lowy reports. But Congress will likely make key decisions. One of the priorities of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee "is writing legislation to reauthorize FAA programs and overhaul aviation policy. The bill is expected to include directions from lawmakers on how to integrate drones into the nation's aviation system. The last reauthorization bill, passed in 2012, directed the agency to integrate drones by Sept. 30, 2015, but it's clear the FAA will miss that deadline," Lowy further reports.

The FAA's rules, which will take another couples of years to finalize, will likely include restrictions on drones flying at night, being kept within the sight of operators and being flown below 400 feet. The FAA may also may more controversially require drone operators to have pilot's licenses.

Could the FAA's drone policies violate the First Amendment?, TechDirt's Mike Masnick asked in a post on Christmas Eve, citing a post from law professor Margot Kaminski. If the FAA can authorize Hollywood to use drones for commercial purposes on a pilot basis, why can't other drone operators fly their machines wihtout restrictions? "'The Supreme Court has long acknowledged that a too-discretionary licensing regime can raise serious First Amendment concerns. This is true even where a complete ban might be permissible,'" Kaminski noted.

When the Federal Aviation Administration granted waivers for Hollywood filmmakers to fly drones on movie sets, federal regulators did so despite warnings from safety inspectors that the plans were too risky and should not be authorized, The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reports: "The warning turned out to be prescient. On Wednesday, a camera-toting drone operated by one of the filmmakers, Pictorvision, flew off a set in California and disappeared, according to an FAA report." 

The agency is facing 167 applications to be permitted to use drones in commercial applications and is not keeping up with the technological advances in the drone industry, Whitlock further reports. The agency is expected to miss the September 2015 deadline on integrating drones into the American airspace by two years.

Whitlock has a delayed investigative report into how the FAA is functioning right now amid a lot of pressure to get drones going safely but quickly. One problem, Whitlock writes, is that a consultant was hired to help streamline the FAA's review process, but the company was also an advocate for the Hollywood filmmakers seeking approval for drone use. The relationship has since ended.

The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't expect to finalize rules for the commercial use of drones under 55 pounds until 2017 or 2018, the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reports. Members of a House Transportation Committee panel had a hearing yesterday during which lawmakers questioned if the FAA is keeping aviation standards in pace with consumer drone sales. Rules were supposed to be released by September 2015. 

The FAA also announced it gave permission to four companies to use drones on a limited basis for aerial surveying and inspections.

The House Transportation is going to be holding a hearing Wednesday about the status of the Federal Aviation Administration's regulations for commercial drones, The Hill's Tim Devaney and Lydia Wheeler report: "Pressure is mounting from the GOP and the business community for the FAA to approve the use of commercial drones, though, Republicans acknowledge the need to address certain safety and privacy issues."

In a separate development, Amazon has told the FAA  that it may move testing of the use of drones in package delivery outside the United States if regulators don't approve domestic testing, Bloomberg's Spencer Soper and Alan Levin report.

U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, D-California, plans on introducing legislation to strengthen drone safety laws, Lawfare's Cody Poplin writes. The legislation would expand the moratorium on private drone use unless the FAA authorizes it, while imposing felony penalties. The bill would require a "safety certification for expansions of private drone use," Feinstein wrote to the head of the FAA.

The Federal Aviation Administration has said no to a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center to conduct rulemaking about the privacy and civil liberties concerns raised by drones, Gizmodo's Adam Clark Estes writes. The FAA, which has to prioritize making rules when immediate safety or security concerns are at stake, said privacy is not an immediate safety concern, but "conveniently, the agency didn't comment on whether drones and privacy present a security concern," Estes says. While it's understandable that the FAA didn't trckle drones and privacy, Este concludes "it makes the issue even more frustrating, because if the agency in charge of regulating drones is not going to protect privacy in its drone rulemaking, who will?"

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said today on CNN that his agency is planning the integration of drones into American airspace in stages, "starting with lower-risk uses and then moving on to other applications," Politico's Jennifer Shutt reports.

The Wall Street Journal's Jack Nicas and Andy Pasztor report that the Federal Aviation Administration is contemplating regulations for commercial drones that industry folks say will "essentially prohibit" industrial applications in pipeline inspections and crop monitoring. While the FAA has not released the proposed federal rules for integrating drones into American airspace, WSJ reports the rules "are expected to require operators to have a license and limit flights to daylight hours, below 400 feet and within sight of the person at the controls, according to people familiar with the rule-making process." Requiring pilot training for drone operators will curb commercial drone usage because it'll be harder to get legal status to use them, including for media usages like filmmaking, WSJ also reports.

Even though the National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the FAA can fine drone operators for commercial use of their aircraft, including toy models, Popular Mechanics reports that the ruling was narrowly focused on "'whether unmanned aircraft systems are subject to an aviation safety regulation concerning reckless operation.'" A rule to integrate drones into American airspace will take up to a year before it goes into effect, Popular Mechanics further reports.