Why America Needs to Get Smarter about Our Commercial Drone Policy

Marc Scribner talks to Opportunity Lives about the failings of current commercial drone policy:

Marc Scribner, a fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute who has called on Congress to bring about a “drone revolution,” told Opportunity Lives that the Europeans generally have much better air navigation service providers compared to FAA. He noted that Europeans are already integrating lightweight (< 150kg) UASs because the European Union exempted them from EU-wide regulation, leaving this is up to member countries.

“The FAA is failing big time,” Scribner said. “The FAA is slow because of status-quo bias.”

“For each year rules are delayed, the United States loses more than $10
 billion in potential economic impact, translating to a loss of $27.6 million
 per day.”

Scribner has written about how a Department of Transportation Inspector General audit report published this summer “found that the FAA was so mired in its own bureaucracy that not only would it fail to meet the 2015 congressional deadline, but that ‘it is uncertain when and if full integration of UAS into the [National Airspace System] will occur.’”