participating in any illegal activities when he was younger and noted that the Justice Department investigated and chose not to charge him.
His post reads in part,
In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated, even some I never dated, but who asked.
I never had sexual contact with someone under 18.
I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.
I live a different life now.
And a reminder that when the House Ethics Committee releases their report on the Gates investigation, we'll have it posted for you at cspan .org.
The House will be in order.
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This is Michael Robbins.
He's the president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems, talking about the recent news concerning drone sightings in the United States.
Mr. Robbins, thanks for your time.
Thanks so much for having me, Peter.
What's your organization?
Yeah, so AUVSI, as you said, the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International.
We represent companies that work in the uncrewed system space, so that's the air, ground, maritime domains.
And it's okay to call them drones, I suppose.
Sure, absolutely.
So when you hear about this week, or at least the last couple of weeks, about drone sightings in the United States, first and foremost, the actual news, what went through your mind, and what do you think your...
The public is saying and legislators are saying versus what your folks are saying.
Yeah, so we view this as an opportunity to talk to the American people and have a conversation about the beneficial uses of drones, of which there are many.
Drones are an awesome tool for public safety, precision agriculture, medical delivery.
There are many use cases that are being employed right now, including in New Jersey where there's lots of infrastructure inspection happening.
So we view this as an opportunity to start having that conversation or continue a conversation we've been having.
What do you think of the level of concern that has been expressed, not only about the vehicles themselves, but the origin of the vehicles?
And where's the truth in what's being said?
We're good to go.
To what's in the sky at night and misidentifying what is maybe a crewed aircraft, maybe it's a star, maybe it's a satellite, and sort of thinking, well, that's there at night.
It looks a little different.
It's not moving really fast.
It must be a drone.
And often that's not the case.
That's not to suggest that there aren't some legitimate, compliant drones operating along the eastern seaboard at night.
There are.
I mean, there are lots of missions that drones are undertaking compliantly and within the law.
I think what we've seen from the videos posted online, the overwhelming majority of them are either a hoax or just people misidentifying aircraft, including some very legitimate officials, members of Congress and others,
who think they saw something that they misidentified as a drone.
What misinformation have you heard?
Yeah, so there's definitely been people, like with anything that happens in the news, where people are trying to take advantage of the situation and suggesting that you know whether it's you know that the government is controlling these drones and and or you know, I'm not gonna repeat all the various hoaxes and myths, but but there's definitely been a lot of misinformation, and look that that comes with any situation.
Right when we had, you know, dramatic hurricanes earlier this year, you know people suggested that that government was controlling the weather.
You know there's there's been an online hoax that that you know, birds aren't real.
So you know there's all kinds of things that occur and then In the news and we're trying to stick to the facts and have a positive conversation here about drones.
On Facebook and on X.
When it comes to oversight of how drones are operated, how much comes from the federal government?
Yeah, right now, all airspace is federal.
So let's clarify that.
So all aircraft, whether it's a drone or a commercial aviation aircraft or general aviation...
Only federal authorities are regulating those aircraft once they take off.
Local state officials do have some say around where they take off and land with zoning permitting and things of that nature.
But once the aircraft is airborne, it's entirely federal authority.
And so then who exactly, what branches of the government deal with their regulation or their oversight?
Yeah, so it's primarily the Department of Transportation and more specifically the Federal Aviation Administration.
On the safety and operations side.
And on the security side, there's also a role for the Department of Homeland Security.
Is there enough being done, or is there enough manpower being done to make sure proper oversight is done on how these drones are used?
Sure.
Well, when it comes to drone policy, I think we look at it two different ways.
One, there's the sort of enabling regulations.
That's what's allowing people to fly in the airspace right now.
And I would suggest that the policies that are in place right now are not enough to allow drone operations, particularly on the commercial side, to scale so that people start seeing on a more regular basis all the benefits that come with drones, whether, again,
that's for public safety missions, search and rescue, or providing law enforcement.
Tactical intelligence or critical infrastructure doing infrastructure inspection using thermal or electrical optical cameras to inspect power lines and pipelines and such.
So many great use cases.
But a lot of that is limited because the rules for enabling drones to operate at scale are not yet in place.
And I think that's part of what this challenge is, is people are seeing maybe drones and they're like, oh, that drone, should it be there?
Because they're not used to seeing them all the time.
And when drones become more commonplace, when the rules are in place to allow for drones to, oh, I need an onion for dinner, I'm just going to order one on my phone and it's going to be delivered seven minutes later, instead of having to get in my car and get on our unsafe roads,
when things like these start occurring more regularly, people won't have the same sort of reaction that they have now when they see a drone in the air, particularly at night.
Because it is still somewhat new and novel, despite the number of drones that are in the airspace.
On the other side, Congress hasn't updated the federal authorities for UAS detection and mitigation since 2018.
So a long time has passed, more than six years since Congress last addressed federal authorities for UAS detection and mitigation.
And right now there's no authority for state, local, tribal, territorial governments at all.
So it only resists the federal level, and even that authority is extremely limited.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think?
This is Michael Robbins of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems.
He serves as their president and C .E .R.
First call is from Susan from New Jersey.
Okay, great.
Susan, good morning.
You're on with our guest.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have a call for Mr. Robbins.
Question.
If you're having dinner with your family outside, your kids and your grandparents, and a person literally sitting on a drone, or a drone who you don't know, came and hovered right next to your table, how would you feel?
Because I see that coming and right now I found out that under U .S. law that's totally allowed and the police would not even be able to make that drone leave.
Because in 2016 the FAA took control over all airspace including the air just above your backyard grass and there's nothing to stop drones from flying over there.
And I live in New Jersey.
I spend a lot of time outdoors.
I watch the birds.
I watch the stars.
You know, I understand the companies you represent are working on dedicated drone corridors to support delivery routes.
We all like delivery convenience, but will those routes be over my house?
You know, Europe has already figured this out.
They have geo -zones and countries worked out where industry, local governments, real people, they have an organized system.
Susan, we'll leave it there for our guests to answer those concerns.
Yeah, great question, Susan.
And certainly, you know, I respect the perspective that you're bringing to this conversation and a very thoughtful question.
Currently, whether it is a drone taking pictures of you or someone using binoculars or a cell phone camera or a telephonic lens, all of those have privacy violations.
A drone is just a tool no different than a camera phone that I have in my pocket and that you likely have at home.
Or binoculars that you have.
And if someone is spying on you and invading your privacy, the same privacy protections that protect your home from a cell phone camera are applied to drones as well.
So I think you have a little bit of misinformation about what has been said about law enforcement not having any ability to address someone spying on you with a drone.
That's not quite right.
But I can certainly understand the concern.
With respect to drone delivery...
When a drone is operating for delivery purposes, that drone does not have the same kind of cameras that a drone that would be taking high resolution photos would have.
That drone is typically operating autonomously or with a remote operator that is setting that drone and it's just operating its mission and any kind of cameras it has just for broader airspace awareness and for very limited purpose and it's not storing that video.
When our member companies are going into communities to launch drone delivery service, they go out of their way to meet with the community and sort of dispel myths and concerns that the community may have.
And certainly at times, there is a little bit of trepidation because this is new and people don't necessarily understand what these drones do and what they don't do.
But what we have found overwhelmingly is that once drones start working in the community, again, whether it's for delivery or public safety or infrastructure inspection, We're good to go.
Let's hear from Wayne in Pennsylvania.
Go ahead.
Yes, I don't know how many classes they send these people to to learn how to answer these questions, but 850 ,000 drones and it's just funny that we haven't seen any of them or any reports for forever.
Now all of a sudden there's thousands of them in the skies and I understand there's a container radioactive material mission in New Jersey and they could be looking for those, but why all of a sudden is there all these reports and all these drones flying?
So, thank you for that question, Wayne, from Pennsylvania.
So, according to FAA data from about 2023, so it's a little bit dated right now, on a daily basis, in New Jersey, for example, there are about 1 ,400 to 1 ,500 flights per day.
That's a lot of drone flights.
And you're right.
Maybe people didn't really pay attention to them anymore.
Drones are very, very small, typically.
They're very, very quiet.
And when they're operating at day or night, most of the time, people don't even notice that they're there.
So now, you know, I think what we're seeing in New Jersey is maybe a few drones were spotted, particularly at night.
The drones that have been identified as actual drones.
Certainly we're operating compliantly.
They have lighting on them, indicating that they're not seeking to be there secretly, not seeking to be there stealthily.
If you were seeking to do some sort of nefarious mission, you wouldn't have navigation lights and strobe lights on your drone.
So I think people, to my point earlier, are just starting to maybe look up and pay attention a little bit more.
And then clearly there's been a lot of misidentification of other aircraft or stars or...
I think that tells you that an overwhelming majority of those sightings were not...
In those conversations with federal officials, what are you asking?
What are they saying?
You know, a lot of your callers are asking, and the American people are asking, you know, what is happening?
Is it as it seems, which to me, which is that there are a few compliant drones, maybe some uncompliant drones, or is there something larger going on here?
And by and large, the overwhelming response has been, you know, no sightings of any uncompliant drones.
What about other countries?
Are they flying these drones?
Have you heard anything on that front?
You mean here in the U .S.?
Yes.
I have not heard anything on that front.
We are certainly aware of other forms of intrusions into our nation, whether you have individuals seeking to break into military bases.
We certainly have a very serious cyber problem that's been well reported in the news.
You know, Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, where foreign adversaries, particularly the People's Republic of China, are probing our networks into our telecommunications, into our water, into our electrical infrastructure.
Those are all very serious problems that we can verify right now.
Is there the potential that foreign adversaries, foreign nations are using drones or other technologies to attempt to probe our military bases and others?
Sure, that is possible, of course.
But there's no verification of that right now.
Let's hear from Michael in Florida.
You're on with our guest, Michael.
Go ahead.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen.
I enjoy the program.
I have a couple statements and a few questions.
My first statement is...
I feel that it's an insult to the American public to say that, oh, in general, you look up, you really don't know it's a drone, we're not used to looking up in the sky.
I don't buy that.
I think that within a day that the federal government could find what these drones are and just not find what they are, where are they originating from and what are they doing?
That's my statement.
My question is, I hear that they may be looking for radiation exposure.
That may be true or not, but I just feel that a general question and a general statement saying that the American public doesn't really know what a drone is.
A drone, it flies so slow, or it doesn't have a lot of space when it's going over a certain neighborhood.
And the size of these drones.
I just feel it's such a downplay to the intelligence of the American population to say that they don't really, usually a public does not look in the sky.
They don't really know what they're seeing.
I feel that it's a little bit more just because of the actual quantity and the actual size of these drones.
What do you think about that?
And one more thing.
How many deliveries are
Okay, Michael.
Thanks.
Yeah, great questions, Michael.
So, I'll address your last question first.
There's not a lot happening on the drone delivery side at night, but certainly there are a lot of other missions that are occurring at night, whether it's public safety, most crime occurs at night, so a lot of local law enforcement use drones as tactical first response, you know,
drones for search and rescue and other missions at night.
As well as infrastructure inspection using thermal or I /O cameras to inspect various infrastructure to ensure that remains safe or to get things that have crashed back online.
With respect to your concern around the American people and what they are or are not seeing, let me give you two very tangible examples.
The governor of Maryland, certainly a well -informed individual, took videos of what he purported to be drones in his backyard.
The next day, he had to walk back those videos, and what he was actually taking videos of was the constellation Orion.
He was looking at stars.
The congressman from New Jersey, I believe his name is Andy Kim, Senator -elect, he took videos, he went out with local law enforcement in New Jersey, took videos of, again, what he thought were drones.
What he was actually viewing were commercial aircraft on approach and landing.
There's something in the night sky called the parallax effect.
When you're looking at a light, it's very hard to tell how far away it is, how fast it's moving or not moving at all.
There's optical illusions with lights at night.
So when you have that parallax effect occurring, things that could be mistaken as drones are clearly now being mistaken as drones when they're actually something very, very different from drones.
Take those two examples from two very well -respected elected officials and extrapolate that many, many times over throughout the American public.
And I think that is what's leading to this sort of media frenzy that we're having right now.
Let's hear from Shannon.
Shannon, also in New Jersey.
Good morning.
Thanks for calling.
Yes, thank you so much.
I really appreciate this segment.
So I was actually just wondering, there's been obviously a lot of videos circulating online.
There's videos of potential like drones or UFOs over the Capitol.
I wanted to see if you have any tips or suggestions for citizens to remain literate around as more of these videos circulate, like can they be generated by AI or are they real videos?
Like are there any suggestions you have for that?
Sure.
Yeah, great question, Shannon.
Thank you so much.
I know that some social media sites do designate a video if it's clearly been used, generated with AI, so that folks can make informed decisions.
I have seen a few videos myself that are very clearly altered or fake.
Sometimes you can tell by watching what else is in the background and see that it's maybe on a loop or that the images are distorted.
But just by and large, I don't have any great tips for cutting through what's real and what's not real.
I have the same problem as everybody else sometimes in sort of trying to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Just try and think through the issues, listen to and trust in our authorities and understand that everything should be looked at with a certain degree of skepticism when it's posted online, particularly not from verified sources.
If the authority for drone operation ultimately Yeah, I think there's a couple things Congress should do.
One, they should hold the FAA accountable for instituting the rules that will normalize drone operations so that we can get past this sort of, you know, this is rare, this is unique, and drones become part of our regular everyday lives like many other forms of technology and many other forms of transportation so that we don't have this sort of skepticism of drones in the future.
Congress needs to update UAS detection and mitigation policy.
As I mentioned, it's been since 2018 since those rules have been updated.
A lot has changed since 2018.
And that is leaving a lot of state, local, tribal, territorial law enforcement leaders really without any kind of tools at all and relying upon the federal agencies which have very limited budgets,
very limited authority as it stands right now.
So those rules need to be updated.
And lastly, this is not unique to Jones, but as a whole, we are under -investing and investing in some cases in the wrong things with our national airspace.
Whether it's our air traffic control towers or our air traffic controllers using paper strips to control air traffic the way they did in the 1960s, 95 % of air traffic controllers are still controlling air traffic using paper strips in 2024.
That's wild.
And I think it's indicative of the fact that we're spending a lot of money on our air traffic organization, keeping
This is Don from Wyoming.
Hello.
Hey, good morning, fellows.
Enjoying the show.
So my questions are this.
I'm a Part 107 license holder, and part of my curriculum pointed out, highlighted that in order to operate a drone over traffic,
Over public spaces where people were present, you had to file a flight plan with the air traffic control, I'm baffled by the notion that we don't know
where these drones are coming from, because if the flight plan isn't approved by the air traffic control or the exemption granted by the FAA,
Thank you, Don.
Yeah, Don, first, congratulations on getting your Part 107 certificate.
What is that button?
Yeah, for those that don't know, that is essentially the license to be able to operate drones in the U .S.
Beyond sort of just the recreational flying, you're really doing some sort of a service, a commercial drone operation.
So congratulations to you.
I think you're absolutely right in that there are certain segments of the airspace where you do need to have FAA approval to fly.
And that approval, Lance, is very easy to get.
It's typically done online.
You get approval from the local tower in relatively short time span.
And I think that actually speaks to the fact that because we have some rules and regulations in place, we certainly do need more.
compliant operators like yourself 107 operators are following the rules and they are doing things the right way which is giving federal authorities you know the ability to understand what's in the air and have airspace awareness I think where there is a shortcoming is when you do have people that are not operating under 107 or are not seeking Lance authorization and they're flying in airspace or maybe they shouldn't.
I think that happens very rarely.
It's not something we hear happening on a regular basis despite this current speculation that drones are doing more than what they really are.
In those cases, you do need to have the UAS detection and mitigation technology and policies in place that I've been discussing to give all levels of government better airspace awareness.
The U .S. House is currently in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
Members could see more votes this evening as they await notice on whether a three -month stopgap government funding bill comes to the floor.
House and Senate leaders released a more than 1 ,500 -page bill last night that keeps the government operating through March 14th.
Right now, Federal operations could shut down at midnight on Friday unless a bill passes both the House and the Senate and is signed by President Biden.
Now, there are two ways to bring the bill to the House floor, either through the Rules Committee or by using expedited rolls requiring a two -thirds majority vote to pass, which seems to be the current option for leadership.
We'll have live coverage of the House when members return later right here on C -SPAN.
The House Ethics Committee will release their report on former Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz by the end of the year.
Mr. Gates, who at one point was President -elect Trump's pick to be the next Attorney General, has denied participating in any illegal activities when he was younger, and noted that the Justice Department investigated and chose not to charge him.
His post reads in part, I probably partied, womanized,
drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.
I live a different life now.
And a reminder that when the House Ethics Committee releases their report on the Gates