In a late night vote, the House Rules Committee voted 9-4 for the National Defense Authorization Act to be voted on by the full House of Representatives tomorrow, June 12. Attached to this bill is the “Countering CCP Drone Act,” which will ban the use of FCC communication infrastructure by DJI drones.
Update 2: DJI ban passes House and moves on to Senate.
Update 1: The House spent Tuesday working through amendments to the NDAA. The bill was not voted on as of yet. The House returns Thursday 6/13, to continue work on the NDAA.
In the final step to get on to the House floor for a full vote, the House Rules Committee voted to pass the NDAA onto the full House. This would be the first full vote needed for the bill, and all the bills attached to it, to become law.
Attached to the NDAA is the Countering CCP Drone Act, which would basically ground all DJI drones, future and current. However, tomorrow is not the day all drones are grounded; there is still some time yet.
Here’s a brief explainer for how bills become laws. After being drafted by a member of congress and sponsored by another, bills can get assigned to committees based on their subject matter, DJI’s ban was handled by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Once the bill passes the committee it moves to a full vote by the full chamber.
However, DJI’s ban was attached to the 2025 NDAA, a much larger bill that funds the US Department of Defense for fiscal year 2025. This is an extremely important bill that makes it hard to not pass. The NDAA moved through several committees on its way to being given the green light for the full House vote.
Once the bill passes its chamber it was introduced in, it then moves to the opposite house for the same process. For DJI it started in the House, so tomorrow the Senate plans to begin its review of the bill.
There’s no guarantee this Act passes the Senate, but with the recent forced sale of TikTok passed last month, a bill banning DJI doesn’t sound impossible to happen.
Top comment by Andrew Baer, M.D.
As I have said previously, this is solely protectionist. A lobbiest for Skydio now works for Stefonik and he actually drafted this legislation. "We the people" lost control of our government long 6if Indeed we ever had it in the first place .
If my understanding is correct, passage of the bill won't literally ground all of our drones.
They are not going to turn off GPS. What it will do is essentially make it illegal for DJI drones to use WiFi and the frequencies they have been allocated to transmit from both the drone and the Controller.
But, the fact of the matter will be that your drone will still work. Using it wo6bd like someone without an Amateur Radio license transmitting like a Pirate radio station.
To really ground all DJI drones it would be necessary to handle them like Schedule 1 drugs or an Title II firearm like a machine gun.
You have something like heroin or an unregistered machine gun, you could face many years in jail.
So, what I am getting at is that it is going to be near impossible for the government to stop recreational drone users from using their drones. They would really have to confiscate them.
I don't see any of that happening.. You might not be able to update your firmware. We might not be able to purchase new DJI drones.
So, now is the time to get your hands on them. I also don't think passage of the bill will prevent DJI from selling batteries or accessories but that I am not sure about.
Once passed by both houses, the President will then make the decision to sign the bill or veto. The veto can be thrown out by a 2/3 majority vote from both houses.
The banning of DJI isn’t the only place where DJI shows up in the NDAA; there’s a part that directs the DoD to take a part a DJI drone and report back to Congress its findings. Sadly, this will take place after a ban will make its information rather useless.
What can you do to help stop the ban from moving forward? Well, it’s most likely too late to call your Representative, however, you can still contact your Senator to voice your opinion on the bill.
The bill is expected to impact the vast majority of drone pilots, and could be devastating for consumer and creative drone pilots. So far, no American company has come forward to fill the void the ban will make in the consumer drone market.
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