President Donald Trump signed several executive orders on Friday, lifting regulations on aviation technology and working to boost American manufacturing of drones.
The trio of orders lifts regulations that had made domestic production of drones costly, prioritizes the usage of American-made drones by federal agencies and provides for the creation of a grant program for U.S. authorities to buy drones, according to NOTUS. The American drone industry had in recent years been struggling to compete with that of China, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“Red tape has hindered homegrown drone innovation, restricting commercial drone use and burdening their development,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, said on a call with reporters previewing the executive orders and discussing the potential promotion of flying vehicles. “Flying cars are not just for the Jetsons, they’re also for the American people.”
“President Trump is Making Aviation Great Again,” according to a White House Fact Sheet regarding the executive orders. “Advances in aerospace engineering, materials science, and noise reduction now make supersonic flight not just possible, but safe, sustainable, and commercially viable,” the sheet said.
The orders will also lower the cost of production for drones in America and allow companies to create a framework for drone delivery services, NOTUS reported. The orders remove longstanding government restrictions regarding noise pollution due to ‘sonic booms,’ allowing more supersonic flights to travel over land.
Boom Supersonic, an American tech company devoted to developing a feasible supersonic airliner, said in a post to X that one of Trump’s orders “effectively lifts the 52-year ban on civil supersonic flight over land in the U.S.”
“Thank you, President Trump, for unlocking the future of faster and quieter travel,” the company added in its post.
Trump’s orders come after a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers from both houses of Congress in May introduced the Supersonic Aviation Modernization (SAM) Act, Boom Supersonic noted in a subsequent X post. The legislation seeks to lift regulations prohibiting most overland supersonic flights.
Republican Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, the sponsor of the House version of the SAM Act, praised the order in a post to X on Friday afternoon. He wrote that the order will ensure “the U.S. is the world leader in supersonic aviation.”
“This EO unleashes American innovation in the aviation sector—ensuring we remain competitive against our foreign adversaries,” Nehls added. “Congress must pass my bill, the SAM Act, to codify this executive order to ensure that outdated regulations don’t hold back the Golden Age of American air travel.”
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