First responders warn that proposed country-of-origin drone ban might hinder life-saving operations and enhance prices for Texas companies.
By DRONELIFE Options Editor Jim Magill
Greater than a dozen witnesses representing police, fireplace and emergency response companies, spoke out just lately towards a invoice pending within the Texas state legislature that might ban the acquisition by authorities companies 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 gear or providers,” 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 america.” The invoice is essentially aimed toward China, which produces the overwhelming majority of drones utilized in each industrial and public security markets within the U.S.
The proposed laws is amongst various comparable payments being thought of in various 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 current listening to earlier than the Texas Home Committee on Homeland Safety, Public Security & Veterans’ Affairs, 16 witnesses testified towards the invoice, in contrast with three witnesses in favor and three with impartial positions. One other 17 witnesses who have been scheduled to testify however didn’t communicate on the listening to expressed opposition to the invoice, whereas six such witnesses have been in favor of the laws and 4 have been impartial.
Whereas many of the witnesses who spoke in opposition to the invoice expressed their help of the said goals of the laws – making certain that vital knowledge collected by drones doesn’t discover its manner 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 issues that in the event that they have been unable to entry drones produced by Chinese language corporations akin to DJI and Autel, they might be compelled to depend on much less succesful and costlier merchandise produced within the U.S. or allied nations.
“I’m right here to inform you that if we have been compelled as search and rescue practitioners to make use of solely the drones which are provided right here in america, individuals will die,” mentioned Kyle Nordfors UAS chairman for the Mountain Rescue Affiliation.
Eddy Saldivar, a captain within the metropolis of Arlington Hearth Division, mentioned his division realized in regards to the worth of DJI drones when attempting 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 have been unable to launch that drone resulting from 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 mentioned.
“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 deliver them dwelling and, and the gear that we decide 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 gear lined 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 gear till January 1, 2031. The invoice would additionally set up a grant program for legislation enforcement companies to switch present drone fleets that have been in use earlier than January 1 2026.
“The grant program is to help legislation enforcement in eradicating present drones in use that could be manufactured by corporations below the management of adversarial nations and changing them with plane that aren’t,” mentioned Hefner, who serves as chair of the Homeland Safety Committee.
A number of audio system representing non-police emergency response companies complained that the grant program must be prolonged to incorporate their companies in addition to these of legislation enforcement.
“It’s doesn’t embrace something for these of us which are responding on the fireplace, emergency administration and EMS facet to wildfires, hurricanes, floods, search and rescue, hazmat response, fireplace suppression, and simply normal fireplace suppression,” mentioned Coitt Kessler, a retired Austin firefighter.
Witnesses testifying in favor of the invoice cited what they considered as potential nationwide safety issues that might stem from using Chinese language-made drones.
“We’re entrusted with defending Texans tax {dollars}, and we should cease utilizing these {dollars} to buy adversary {hardware},” mentioned Scott Shtofman, the affiliate vp and counsel for regulatory affairs for AUVSI. “We have to spend money on American made-technology, which is quickly bettering its manufacturing with main innovation.”
Jacqueline Deal, who testified on behalf of State Armor in favor the invoice, cited the actions taken by numerous companies of the federal authorities to limit using 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 mentioned.
“And we want to have the ability to have our personal {hardware} within the occasion of a struggle. That’s leverage or coercive strain from China,” Deal mentioned.
A number of of the lawmakers on the committee specific their issues that knowledge collected by Chinese language-made drones probably might make its option to China, the place it might be used for nefarious functions by the Chinese language authorities. Nonetheless, a number of the audio system who fly drones of their operations mentioned they’ve taken steps to stop that from taking place, by conserving their drones air-gapped, or remoted from the web. Additionally they really useful using third-party software program, produced by American corporations akin to Austin-based DroneSense, moderately than counting on the producer’s software program to regulate the drone.
“My suggestion permits us to make use of U.S.-based software program on overseas {hardware}. It’s no completely different than your iPhone that has Foxconn chips,” mentioned Rob Robertson a committee member and teacher for the Regulation 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 might be remotely triggered to trigger issues for the end-user, however Robertson largely dismissed these issues as nicely.
He famous that the 2025 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, which just lately was signed into legislation, mandated {that a} federal cybersecurity audit, particularly concentrating on DJI, be carried out. “That’s why my suggestion is that we delay this (invoice) and we rethink this when we have now the outcomes of that research,” he mentioned.
As as to if DJI could be concealing the existence of a secret “Chinese language chip” able to performing some nefarious motion inside its drones, Robertson mentioned, “I can inform you sure, there’s at all times a chance. I can’t inform you there’s no manner that this may occur, as a result of it could occur.”
Learn extra:
Jim Magill is a Houston-based author with virtually a quarter-century of expertise overlaying technical and financial developments within the oil and fuel trade. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P World Platts, Jim started writing about rising applied sciences, akin to synthetic intelligence, robots and drones, and the methods through 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 Automobile Techniques Worldwide.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, an expert drone providers market, and a fascinated observer of the rising drone trade and the regulatory setting for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles centered on the industrial drone house 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 new applied sciences.
For drone trade consulting or writing, E-mail Miriam.
TWITTER:@spaldingbarker
Subscribe to DroneLife right here.