Bills
| 3.23.22

Should the Federal Government Have an Inter-Agency Underwater Drone Strategy? (S. 2511)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is S. 2511?

(Updated September 21, 2019)

This bill — the Commercial Engagement Through Ocean Technology Act of 2018 (CENOTE) Act of 2018 — would generally codify existing practices concerning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s acquisition and use of unmanned maritime systems (UMS), also known as drones.

The bill would require the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to carry out a program to coordinate the NOAA’s assessment and acquisition of UMS. It’d also require that the NOAA: 1) regularly assess publicly and commercially available UMS; 2) make the data it collects using UMS publicly available; 3) centralize its acquisition of UMS; and 4) coordinate its efforts with the U.S. Navy.

To facilitate its coordination with the Navy, the NOAA would be required to convene a coordinating committee comprising of representatives from the Navy, NOAA’s Offices of Atmospheric Research (OAR), NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO), NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration, NOAA’s Office of the Integrated Ocean Observing System, and other NOAA offices involved with UMS usage. The coordinating committee would be responsible for:

  • Ensuring NOAA is informed and aligned with the Navy’s strategic, research, and operational priorities;

  • Making Naval UMS testing and training facilities available to NOAA;

  • Mutual provisions for best practices for UMS operations and training centers as well as UMS testing, research, and acquisitions;

  • The consideration of shared UMS or provision of decommissioned UMS; and

  • Collaboration and knowledge-sharing on topics relevant to UMS (e.g. oceanic mapping, bathymetry, and ocean exploration).

The bill would also grant the Coordinating Committee and the Navy the authority to partner with over federal agencies, private industries, and academic institutions interested in the research, development, workforce-training, commercialization, and acquisition of UMS.

Within a year of this bill’s passage and every four years thereafter, NOAA would be required to submit a report to Congress detailing its current UMS inventory, data collected by UMS, and the resulting benefits.

Argument in favor

Drones have many applications for underwater research, and the NOAA should be taking the lead role in coordinating their use and management. It should also be responsible for coordinating cooperation on this technology between the military, public, private, academic, and federal spheres.

Argument opposed

Drones’ impact on marine wildlife is still largely unknown. Without fully understanding these risks, no one — including the U.S. government — should be using drones in the ocean.

Impact

Ocean research; UMS; drones; NOAA; U.S. Navy; UMS research; UMS commercialization; climate research; oceanic mapping; ocean exploration; and the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.

Cost of S. 2511

The CBO estimates that implementing this bill would cost $5 million over the 2019-2023 period to cover additional NOAA employees to research the purpose of new unmanned vehicles.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced this bill to advance the NOAA’s use of unmanned maritime systems, encourage private sector research and development, and ensure that maritime data is readily available and reliable:

“Unmanned systems are allowing us to explore the ocean in unprecedented ways. Expanding NOAA’s mission to include the use of this unobtrusive technology would only help to advance our knowledge of what is happening above and below the surface of the water. This legislation also enables the agency to tap into our universities and the private sector to get the brightest minds working together.”

Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS), a sponsor of the House version of this bill, adds that by giving the NOAA authority to expand its use of UMS, this bill allows the NOAA to tap into public-private partnerships:

“By enabling NOAA to further advance its use of unmanned maritime systems, we will be able to tap into a wealth of resources between public-private partnerships. This bill creates a framework that brings together defense, non-defense, and private sector partners in order to collect a wide-range of ocean data. I believe uniting these industries to expand unmanned maritime systems usage will fuel [the economy]."

The Consortium for Ocean Leadership supports this bill. Its President and CEO, Retired Rear Admiral Jon White, calls public-private partnerships that advance ocean science beneficial for the entire U.S.:

“Thanks to Senator Wicker and Senator Schatz for introducing this bipartisan bill that addresses key gaps in the establishment of public-private partnerships among defense and non-defense agencies, industry, and academia. Partnerships like these advance the ocean science and technology enterprise, benefitting the entire nation. CENOTE’s bipartisan development is a testament to the widespread prioritization of investing limited national resources efficiently and effectively in the comprehensive application of new maritime technologies. CENOTE is a win for defense, commerce, fisheries, environmental monitoring and research, and disaster planning and recovery, and I encourage Congress to act on it.”

Mike Clancy, Required Technical Director of Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography, explains that understanding the ocean is needed for long-range climate science:

“We are tied into the ocean. We need the oceans to be healthy. You need to understand the oceans so it's important to be able to understand that science. It's important to be able to predict those kinds of variations in the ocean so we can predict long-range what our climate weather will be like and this legislation will advance the technology, it will help us understand all those things.”

This bill passed the Senate with an amendment on a unanimous vote with the support of one cosponsor.


Of Note: UMS’ applications include maintaining and improving national security, coastal and oceanic environmental monitoring, and resource acquisition. They also have applications for oil and energy exploration, infrastructure surveys, search and recovery missions, and military uses. Eventually, as they become more sophisticated, UMSes could potentially gain the ability to work both underwater and in the air to take samples from both air and sea.

Underwater drones offer some significant advantages over remove underwater vehicles (ROVs), particularly in the realm of mobility. Since they, unlike ROVs, don’t have wires, drones are more versatile, able to explore tighter spaces, and more readily able to follow divers.

Some researchers have expressed concern about whether drones disturb wildlife. On land, there are documented cases of drones disturbing animals and causing them to behave in ways they normally wouldn’t — a recent case being that of a brown bear cub and its mother, who were spooked by a drone filming them, causing the mother and cub to take a dangerous mountain passage that the mother wouldn’t have otherwise traversed. There’s less information, however, on how drones underwater affect marine wildlife.


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / Matus Duda)