Policy & Regulation
Drone policy and regulation news from UASFeed — FAA rulemaking, BVLOS, Part 108, the DJI debate, export controls, and the rules shaping the uncrewed sky.
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Policy & Regulation
US Envoy Tells Taiwan to Become a 'Hornet's Nest' of Drones — as Rival $6.6B and $7.5B Budgets Collide in Parliament
America's top envoy in Taipei says drones are Taiwan's best deterrent as lawmakers weigh two competing multibillion-dollar drone budgets and a $14B US arms sale sits delayed.
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Policy & Regulation
Ukraine Opens a 'Transparent' Weapons Export Pipeline — Letting 27 Drone Deal Partners Buy Directly From Its Manufacturers
Ukraine's Cabinet approved its first formal weapons-export mechanism on July 1, letting 27 Drone Deal partner nations buy directly from Ukrainian drone makers, with Kyiv retaining veto power and a 20% cut on re-exports.
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Policy & Regulation
The SAFER SKIES Rule Goes Live: Cops Can Now Legally Down Drones — If They Pass the FBI Schoolhouse First
A DOJ/DHS interim final rule effective July 1 lets state, local, tribal, territorial and correctional agencies detect, track and shoot down drones — but only after FBI certification, which is also the gate to a $500M grant pool.
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Policy & Regulation
Drones as Plumbing: The House's FY27 NDAA Bets on Doctrine, Ranges, and a Common OS
The House's FY27 NDAA (H.R. 8800) pivots from buying more drones to building the scaffolding to run them — a common sUAS operating system, dedicated training corridors, formal autonomy doctrine, and new rules for AI that influences the use of force.
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Policy & Regulation
Hegseth Names a Pentagon 'Drone Czar': New DRPM-UxS to Absorb Almost Every Unmanned Program
A June 29 Hegseth memo creates a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems reporting to Deputy Secretary Feinberg, pulling tens of billions in Group 1-3 drones, ground robots and surface vessels under one office — with the Navy's MUSV the notable carve-out.
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Policy & Regulation
Fourth Strike in Four Days: A Drone Hits a JetBlue Jet Over JFK as U.S. Airports Still Have No Legal Way to Stop It
A drone struck JetBlue Flight 948 above the cockpit at ~3,000 feet on approach to JFK on June 29 — the fourth NYC-area drone incident in four days — exposing that civil airports and local police still have no legal authority to detect or interdict drones in real time.
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Policy & Regulation
One Line About Drones in Trump's Resilience Strategy — and What It Signals for Part 108
Commercial drones appear exactly once in the White House's June 2026 National Resilience Strategy — in Trump's intro — but the placement, not the prose, is the signal for Part 108 and supply chains.
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Policy & Regulation
The Drone Lobby Storms Capitol Hill: Adversarial-UAS Bans, Counter-UAS Authority, and a $70B FY27 Bet
At AUVSI's June 24 Hill Day, 100+ industry leaders ran 90+ meetings to push procurement bans on adversarial-nation drones, more DHS counter-UAS grants, and permanent Blue/Green UAS pathways — as core DoD C-UAS authority nears its Dec. 31 sunset and FY27 steers $70B+ to drone dominance.
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Policy & Regulation
FAA Breaks Ground on V-PAR, Its First Dedicated eVTOL Test Range, to Solve the Vertiport Integration Problem
The FAA broke ground June 26, 2026 on V-PAR, an ~$8.3M Oklahoma City test range purpose-built to study how eVTOL aircraft fold into the National Airspace System — wake, downwash, RF interference and vertiport procedures.
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Policy & Regulation
NATO and EU Race to Close the Eastern Flank's Drone Gaps as Russian Incursions Surge
Renew Europe says NATO has agreed to accelerate counter-drone initiatives ahead of an Ankara summit, pressing for real detection-to-neutralization capability along the Arctic-to-Black Sea flank as Romania logs most of its wartime drone incursions in 2026 alone.
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Policy & Regulation
FAA Cracks the Door Open: How Part 107/135 Operators Can Get Authorized to Fly Inside World Cup 'No Drone Zones'
The FAA's June 22 NOTAM update confirms certain drone operations may be permitted inside World Cup security airspace with DHS authorization — giving Part 107 and 135 operators a concrete approval path via [email protected] amid $100,000 fines and the new DETER enforcement push.
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Policy & Regulation
FAA Misses Trump’s February Deadline on BVLOS Rule as Right-of-Way Fight Stalls Part 108
The FAA has blown past a White House deadline to finalize Part 108, the rule that would replace case-by-case BVLOS waivers with a routine certification pathway — stalled chiefly by a proposed inversion of crewed-aircraft right-of-way precedent that drew more than 1,600 opposing comments.
