A multistate coalition in the US has filed a lawsuit challenging the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with “insufficient evaluation of the environmental consequences of commercial drone package delivery”. The 15 states and one Texas county argue that the FAA violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta, who has signed the lawsuit along with several other attorneys general, said on 28 September that the FAA “purported to comply with NEPA by issuing a Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) and Finding of No Significant Impact, and Record of Decision”.
Bonta says the PEA provides an overview of nationwide drone package deliveries to occur at future points in time without meaningful contextual information about the impacted communities or environment. “It [the FAA] contemplates a dramatic expansion of package delivery by drones but does not adequately address the potential safety risks or other environmental impacts,”
Drone delivery operations are underway in a number of US states, including Florida, Utah, Arkansas and California.
The attorneys general of California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as Harris County, Texas have signed the lawsuit.
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Office of the Attorney General of California
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