Bipartisan bills to regulate drone usage in Michigan received a state House committee hearing Tuesday.
The bills would designate some areas, like government buildings, power plants, and other key facilities as no drone zones. They would give local law enforcement the power to take trespassing drones down, rather than wait on the federal government.
State Representative Will Bruck (R-Erie) said without that power, federal policies meant to restrict drones in sensitive areas go ignored. He says that puts Michigan at risk of a weaponized drone attack.
“I’m not trying to do scare tactics, I’m just stating facts. There [are] no protections for malicious drones in our state,” Bruck told the Michigan House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
His presentation included data from Airspace Link’s AirHub Portal that showed dozens of drone flights around downtown Detroit and near or across the Canadian border over a couple of days earlier this month.
Aside from limiting where people could fly their drones, the bills would also let the state install a system to stop drones from flying above its government buildings. Drone operators would need to use a smartphone app that would tell them when they’re flying too close to a restricted area.
State Representative Mike Harris (R-Waterford) said the state needs to take the threat of dangerous drones seriously.
“They can be used to access Wi-Fi hotspots at our water treatment facilities. They can be used to carry all sorts of horrible things that could affect some of these critical infrastructure pieces that we’re talking about. This is a real threat. This isn’t just something we’ve seen in a movie,” Harris said.
The legislation generally saw support during Tuesday’s committee hearing.
Matt Rybar, with the Michigan Drone Association, said his group supports the bill package’s goals. But he shared concerns about expanding the power to take down drones and how practical it would be to put some of the new measures in place.
“The mitigation authority of taking those drones out of the sky is a highly contested federal issue as well,” he said.
Rybar mentioned there’s now an FBI training center to teach state and local governments how to do that safely, but actually carrying out the operation can still be subject to debates over government authority.
Other concerns expressed during the meeting involved where the bills would overlap with federal policies, and what would happen to hobby users who may be unaware of restrictions or accidentally fly their drones where they shouldn’t.
Currently, violating some of the bills would carry a felony charge with up to four years in prison or a $2,500 fine.
Rybar said even the new technology requirements to create a geofence to keep unwanted drones away could make things too tough for drone companies to do business in Michigan.
“As we ramp up all of this U.S. manufacturing, putting these geofencing requirements and other things in place is going to have organizations not wanting to come to Michigan to innovate because there’s no technology in place that can be blanketed to integrate with every drone on the market,” he said.
That’s as federal policy is trying to onshore drone production and limit the market share of Chinese-made drones. The Federal Communications Commission currently accuses most foreign-made drones of providing a national security risk.
In a nod to those concerns, the Michigan bills would stop law enforcement agencies from using drones on that federal list.
