CONGRESS CALLING FOR IMMEDIATE USE OF DRONES OVER AMERICAN CITIES
   In the recently enacted FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (section 1097), Congress mandated that “the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall establish a program to integrate unmanned drone aircraft  into the national airspace system at six test ranges.” This new test range program is supposed to be established within 180 days.  A House-Senate conference report  this week called on the Administration to accelerate the use of civilian and military drones in U.S. airspace. The conference bill also calls for the establishment of drone test ranges in cooperation with NASA and the Department of Defense. Congress will require new safety research to assess the risk of “catastrophic failure of the unmanned aircraft that would endanger other aircraft in the national airspace system.”
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