Efforts to restrict or ban Chinese-made drones in the US took a step forward yesterday with the passage of the Countering CCP Drones Act in the US House of Representatives. The bill, which received bipartisan support, would add DJI to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Covered List, meaning that new models of DJI drones would be effectively prohibited from operating on communications networks in the US.
Introduced by Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the bill will now move to the Senate, where it will be reviewed and possibly added to the Senate version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“For years, the US government has known that DJI presents unacceptable economic and national security risks, but no one was willing to take the necessary steps to remove Communist Chinese spy drones from our skies. That changed today,” Stefanik said on the House floor after the bill passed. “It is strategically irresponsible to allow Communist China to be our drone factory. It is now critical that the Senate include this legislation in their National Defense Authorization Act.”
The Countering CCP Drones Act is part of a larger effort to address potential threats posed to the US by Chinese-made technology. The same day the Countering CCP Drones Act passed in the House, legislators approved three other bills aimed at safeguarding US systems from foreign threats. Lawmakers also approved the Securing Global Telecommunications Act (H.R. 4741), Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act (H.R. 820), and the ROUTERS Act (H.R. 7589).
Despite bipartisan support among legislators, the Countering CCP Drones Act is opposed by many in the commercial drone industry because of the impact it could have on current drone-based operations. Many private companies and public agencies in the US, working in fields such as agriculture, emergency services, and infrastructure, have invested heavily in DJI equipment and rely on these systems for day-to-day operations. A DJI ban, opponents believe, could have a devastating effect on commercial operations and public safety.
In July, DroneDJ reported that “representatives of more than 6,000 public safety agencies, police, and fire departments with drone programs across the US wrote to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to oppose the inclusion of the Countering CCP Drones Act in the NDAA.”
Watch Commercial UAV News for updates on the Countering CCP Drones Act.
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