From
http://dronelawjournal.com/
But it will require someone to challenge those "laws" being made in court
State and local government drone law.
State and local governments have passed legislation that purports to regulate drone flight, but if challenged in court, any such laws would be considered
preempted by the federal government's intent to "occupy the field," and therefore be invalid. By federal statute, "[t]he United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States" (
49 U.S. Code § 40103(a)(1)). The passage of the FMRA confirms the federal government's intent to continue to "occupy the field" of flight, thereby invalidating (through preemption) any state or local laws that purport to regulate it.
State and local governments may, however, regulate two things related to flight:
- They may regulate their own agencies' drone flight operations; and
- They may regulate the locations on the ground from which drones may be launched, landed or operated.
That's it. State and local governments cannot regulate drones in any other manner. They can of course use laws of
general applicability (such as voyeurism, reckless endangerment, nuisance, etc.) to prohibit certain
acts, which would apply to a drone pilot, if a drone happened to be the
object used to perform the prohibited
act. They
could also pass unnecessary and duplicative criminal statutes specific to drones, but they'd be essentially meaningless since existing criminal statutes would already cover those crimes regardless of whether they were committed with a drone.
