As drone use grows, is your state ready?

The Biden administration will spend months deciding which Trump policies to modify, but Secretary of Transportation nominee Pete Buttigieg just shed light on an important one: In a confirmation hearing, he noted that some low-altitude drones aren’t necessarily a federal matter. Only a month ago, Trump’s Federal Aviation Administration announced its eagerly anticipated new drone policies, making way for long-distance deliveries and services.

Now, companies like Walmart, Amazon, and UPS are testing drones and readying delivery operations. In a new Mercatus Center at George Mason University report, we identify several states which are already taking the initiative to quickly bring in drone jobs, revenue and new services for their residents and industries.

The biggest obstacle to drone services is gaining regulators’ permission to use low-altitude airspace. Once they have that, operators can begin commercial operations. Last April, for instance, UPS and a company called DroneUp joined forces to make use of a vacant college campus in Virginia, where they simulated a local delivery system of COVID-19 supplies. After just two days, drones were making deliveries across the 55-acre campus every 3 minutes. The FAA’s new policies will allow more companies to test similar services.

With the technology maturing, the commercial drone industry is growing quickly around the world and in the U.S. — even faster than the FAA’s optimistic predictions a few years ago. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of commercial drones registered in America alone, and a global race has begun.

The new FAA rules, which go into effect in a few weeks, specifically allow for the routine use of drones at night, above people, and above roadways if certain safety precautions are followed. They will further accelerate commercial, long-distance drone services, with particularly promising possibilities to deliver medical supplies, agricultural services, inspections and home supplies.

However, now that federal regulators have started to open the door, more responsibility will fall to state legislatures and regulators. Aviation is traditionally dominated by federal regulation, but drones and their flight paths involve local issues of private property, trespass, privacy and local law enforcement.

As such, our new report ranks states by their “drone readiness.” It’s no coincidence that Arkansas and North Carolina are in the top 10, joining North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nevada, Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey, Delaware, and Texas. Each received high scores due to laws and policies that encourage commercial drone operations.

If a state’s transportation department creates a drone program office — like North Carolina’s did — it gives operators a one-stop shop to gain compliance with state and national rules. Our report also gives high scores to states like Oregon, New Hampshire, and Virginia that allow state and city officials to lease airspace to private companies.

We expect and hope that other states will follow suit this year, standing up new drone program offices in order to generate new services and jobs. Ohio and Utah are other states to watch. Their departments of transportation have created drone program offices and each is exploring the idea of creating “drone highways” — dedicated aerial corridors for drone services above public roadways. Since the FAA will soon allow drones to operate above vehicles and at night, states also can use their existing airspace leasing laws to generate revenue and keep operations away from quiet neighborhoods.

It’s an exciting new era for drone operators, but the hard part — creating a profitable industry and jobs — has just begun. With informed federal decision making and collaboration, America will have the world’s leading drone industry and policies that balance safety, privacy and residents’ needs.

Brent Skorup is a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a member of the Texas Department of Transportation’s autonomous vehicle task force. Patricia Patnode is a Mercatus research assistant. They are the coauthors of a new study, “Which States Are Prepared for the Drone Industry?”