House drone threat mitigation bill avoids more ambitious proposals

Moves are afoot in Congress to pass legislation replacing existing laws expiring October 5 authorizing the identification and mitigation of drones posing security threats. Yet a new House of Representatives bill aiming to do that reportedly falls well short of the robust proposals circulated by the White House earlier this year.

According to Bloomberg Government, which said it obtained the text of bipartisan H.R. 8949, the bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and its 2018 enlargement is closer to a renewal of existing measures for battling drone threats than an embrace of the White House Domestic Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems National Action Plan released in April. 

It similarly shies away from a more expansive draft law introduced in the Senate in July to take on what political leaders consider the rising potential threats by drones to passenger airline traffic, in criminal deployment by people and drug traffickers, and possible…