Stefanik's Work Hides Behind First Responders to Gut the Affordable Drone Market

The Drone industry has raised its hackles regarding the Drones for First Responders Act introduced by Congressional rep Elise Stefanik, describing it as a boon to the EMS/Fire/Police crowd at the expense of the recreational and commercial drone industries.

"While on the surface, this bill makes a lot of sense, and I believe the industry is on board with what the Congresswoman is trying to do for First Responders (in addition to farmers and ranchers, as well as those who work with critical infrastructure), that’s where our support ends," said Vic Moss of the Droning Company.

The bill would increase tariffs on Chinese drones by 5% per year, up to a full 50% after 4 years of effect, when the 50% would be joined by a full $100 tariff on top. After January 1st, 2030, the bill would ban drones from import to the USA if they contain a host of hardware manufactured in China, like gimbals, cameras, antennas, radios, flight controllers, network connectivity hardware, and data storage drives. That list of items is, in essence, a whole laundry list of stuff that isn't made in the US, and may not even be available outside of Chinese or Chinese-derived sources. 

The sugar coating on this poison pill for the little guys' drone market is that the greatly expanded tariffs would be used to set up a fund to issue grants to first responders. Of the fund, 60% would be granted to "first responders", which could be realistically understood to, in all cynical likelihood, ramp up surveillance capacity for law enforcement and buy them the very toys denied to the peasantry. EMS and Fire haven't made too much headway in accepting drones in their daily operations, but police departments, sheriffs, and agencies across the country sure have. The other 40% of the fund would issue grants that "benefit farmers and ranchers" and "grants that benefit providers of critical infrastructure". 

All in all, in 5 years, the average customer would be paying 50% more across the board for their drones, with an extra $100 fee tacked on top, all to support more inscrutable, opaque free-money grants for other folks' toys. Moss points out that the bills could maybe be said to be well-intentioned, if Stefanik wants to specifically destroy Chinese manufacturer DJI, or to eliminate a suspected but yet-unproven security issue. Third, he states, it could be aimed at bolstering domestic drone manufacturing, though anyone already familiar with American manufacturing has already scoffed at the idea of onboarding that electronics pipeline.

Moss believes the industry is best served by junking this bill, and addressing those root causes if they're so important to lawmakers. "If the end game is to actually mitigate a potential (key word is potential) security threat, which by the way has never been publicly proven (key words are public proven), then let’s work on the actual issue instead of using it as a ruse to decimate an entire industry."

"If we want to get serious about this, then Congress needs to put politics aside and craft a set of UAS specific cyber security protocols that would apply to ALL drones that are flown in areas with legitimate security concerns. And we really need to decide what areas actually have legitimate security concerns. The absurdity of the way it’s applied now is laughable."

FMI: www.thedroningcompany.com