Sponsor
Byron Donalds
Representative · R-FL
Representative · R-FL
The bill expands use of drones in wilderness and remote areas to speed environmental monitoring and emergency response, improving public safety and environmental management while compromising privacy and wilderness protections and creating new costs for governments.
Local, State, Tribal, and Federal search-and-rescue teams can use drones to locate missing or injured people faster in remote/wilderness areas, improving survival and rescue times.
Disaster-response teams at federal, State, local, and Tribal levels can monitor wildfires, floods, storms, and other natural disasters with UAS to improve situational awareness and better target response resources.
Federal, State, local, and Tribal agencies can use drones to detect and monitor harmful algal blooms and invasive species more quickly, enabling faster environmental mitigation and protection of water and habitat quality.
Wilderness visitors, nearby residents, and Tribal communities may face increased surveillance and reduced privacy due to expanded UAS operations by law enforcement and agencies (including CBP) in protected areas.
Allowing drones in designated wilderness creates a broad exception to previous prohibitions and reduces regulatory protections for wilderness character and quiet, potentially degrading the wilderness experience and ecological integrity.
Expanded UAS programs will impose procurement, training, maintenance, and operational costs on Federal, State, and local agencies, requiring new spending and ongoing budget commitments.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes federal, state, local, and tribal agencies to operate drones in designated, potential, and study wilderness areas for environmental monitoring, law enforcement/search-and-rescue, and disaster monitoring.
Official title: To amend the Wilderness Act to allow certain entities to use unmanned aircraft systems within wilderness areas, potential wilderness areas, and wilderness study areas.
Introduced May 15, 2025 by Byron Donalds · Last progress May 15, 2025
Allows federal, state, local, and tribal agencies to fly and operate limited-use unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drones) inside designated wilderness areas, potential wilderness areas, and wilderness study areas for three specific purposes: environmental monitoring and research, law enforcement and search-and-rescue (including Customs and Border Protection), and monitoring effects of natural disasters. The change amends the Wilderness Act by creating an explicit statutory exception to prior general prohibitions on such uses and cross-references existing federal definitions for UAS and natural disaster.