The Security Industry Association (SIA) strongly supports lawmakers taking crucial and long-overdue steps needed to address growing threats posed by the weaponization or misuse of drones. In particular, these steps are needed to protect fans attending venues and events as part of the 2026 World Cup, 2028 Olympic Games and America 250 celebrations set to be held in the United States.

Key provisions included in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) expand legal authorities for drone detection, tracking and identification and mitigation to trained state and local law enforcement officials and correctional agencies. Enactment of these provisions would be a historic and significant step forward in improving our nation’s security posture, which SIA’s Drone Security Subcommittee has been advocating since the group’s inception in 2023.

This legislation championed by many congressional advocates, including House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D.-Penn.), would help accomplish many of the recommendations of the Domestic Counter-UAS National Action Plan, initiated under the first Trump administration, and more recently the executive order Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty.

“Passing this language as a part of the NDAA will be a crucial expansion of counter-UAS authorities to further enhance the air domain awareness of state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement,” said Brett Feddersen, chair, SIA’s Drone Security Subcommittee and vice president of strategy and government affair, D-Fend Solutions. “We look forward to continuing our work with Congress and the federal government to implement this legislation and further expand the appropriate authorities to the trained professional security personnel protecting our critical infrastructure.”

The NDAA also contains other key counter-uncrewed aircraft system (counter-UAS) passages, including Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)’s COUNTER Act, endorsed by SIA, which clarifies authorities for U.S. Department of Defense personnel and allows armed forces that protect sensitive installations within the United States the authority to rapidly detect and mitigate hostile drones, protecting U.S. assets from incursions.

SIA encourages the Senate to take up the NDAA and send it to the president to sign it into law before the end of the year.