TechFreedom Sues the FAA on Drone Regulations

This article originally appeared at techfreedom.org.

TechFreedom has sued the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) to overturn the agency’s recently adopted “interim” drone regulations, which require that drones that weigh over 250 grams be registered for a $5 fee.

“Whether or or not requiring drone registration is a wise policy, the rules the FAA rushed out before Christmas are unlawful,” said Berin Szoka, President of TechFreedom. “They exceed the authority Congress has given the FAA. Moreover, the agency illegally bypassed the most basic transparency requirement in administrative law: that it provide an opportunity for the affected public to comment on its regulations. That means the FAA could not fully consider the real-world complexities of regulating drones. Thus, the FAA’s rules could lead to a host of unintended consequences.”

“The notice-and-comment rulemaking process serves an important role in ensuring that regulation doesn’t do more harm than good,” said Tom Struble, Policy Counsel at TechFreedom. “It ensures that the agency is exposed to viewpoints from all the relevant stakeholders, and it forces the agency to weigh competing considerations before issuing a rule. The holiday rush did not justify the FAA bypassing standard notice-and-comment rulemaking, and the paltry cost-benefit analysis contained in the IFR does not pass muster. The D.C. Circuit should set aside these interim rules and force the FAA to go back to the drawing board.”

See TechFreedom’s petition for review here.