Air Advocacy

A Unified Voice in the Air

The Air Advocacy Committee (AAC) drives AUVSI’s legislative and regulatory agenda for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). Guided by input from our members, the AAC works closely with federal agencies, lawmakers, and state, local, and tribal leaders to advance policies that enable safe, scalable integration of autonomous aviation.

Our mission is to ensure regulations keep pace with innovation—promoting U.S. and allied leadership and competitiveness in the air domain.

The AAC brings together a broad coalition of stakeholders, including UAS operators, manufacturers, software developers, AAM companies, and defense contractors, united in speaking with one voice to shape the future of uncrewed flight.

Reach out to Max Rosen mrosen@auvsi.org to get involved.

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• Chairperson: Benjamin Ivers, Boeing
• Vice-Chairperson: Amanda Armistead, Amazon
• Subcommittees: Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

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Our current policy priorities

Members meet monthly—and often more frequently—to develop advocacy goals and policy positions. The AAC also has two subcommittees – a Drone Subcommittee and an AAM Subcommittee, who meet bimonthly to discuss pressing issues in those spaces.

Here are a few of the priorities we’re currently working on:

1. Establishing the AAC as the preeminent industry voice influencing UAS and AAM regulations and legislation and positioning the AAC, and AUVSI, positively during the 2023-2024 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization bill (more on this below).
2. Establishing a clear pathway for advanced UAS operations Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and ensuring the rulemakings associated with the BVLOS Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) recommendations are issued as quickly as possible.
3. Ensuring domestic UAS and AAM companies have the resources they need to globally compete with companies that are heavily subsidized by their respective governments.
4. Ensuring a favorable National Airspace System (NAS) for key UAS operations, including drone deliveries, routine public safety operations, critical infrastructure inspections, defense operations, counter-UAS operations, and other high-value, low-risk use cases.
5. Fostering an inclusive airspace for AAM, Urban Air Mobility (UAM), and Regional Air Mobility (RAM) aircraft and operations.
6. Creating a new regulatory framework that shifts away from the traditional aviation safety continuum, which does not work well for advanced aviation, and looks forward to establish rules that unlock the full potential of UAS and AAM technologies.
7. Developing next steps for the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) to work alongside the current air traffic management system.
8. Ensuring that the FAA retains exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States in order to maintain safety and operational consistency across all users of the NAS.
9. Providing law enforcement with the proper authority to mitigate errant or potentially malicious UAS and ensuring Preventing Emerging Threats Act compliance and consistent reauthorization.
10. Developing strong public-private partnerships to foster voluntary, risk-based approaches to data security and operations management, the development of industry-driven initiatives on data management best practices and security standards that ensure critical mission information is accessed by authorized parties, and the development of industry-driven security standards.
11. Ensuring UAS and AAM have access to spectrum to conduct operations, including the use of command-and-control technologies at higher altitudes, use of detect-and-avoid systems, ability to transmit payload data, and to conduct operations that ultimately strengthen the operation of UAS in the NAS. AUVSI continues to look for regulatory efforts we can comment on, after filing comments to the FCC’s recent C-Band Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
12. Opening markets, reducing barriers and regulations, and injecting more certainty and predictability into the marketplace, trade, and investment agreements, which are key catalysts for the innovation progress that drive our global economies and markets.
13. Promoting technology transfer and international harmonization of standards to realize the full potential benefits of UAS.