{"id":3718,"date":"2018-05-17T09:35:04","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T13:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/?p=3718"},"modified":"2018-05-17T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T13:35:04","slug":"government-affairs-update-may-17-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/2018\/05\/17\/government-affairs-update-may-17-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Government Affairs Update, May 17, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government Affairs Update, May 17, 2018<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past few months, the AMA Government Affairs Team has been hard at work at the federal, state and local level to protect and preserve our longstanding hobby. Just last month, the House of Representatives passed its version of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. While much of what we fought for was included in this bill \u2013 including the preservation of Section 336, also known as the Special Rule for Model Aircraft — there are also some provisions in the bill that concern us and would create further ambiguity for the recreational community. Our team has been busy preparing for the next step in the legislative process.<\/p>\n

We want to thank the thousands of AMA members who participated in our \u201cCall to Action\u201d in April to let Congress know about the importance of protecting our hobby. Your efforts during this critical time made a significant impact, and we appreciate your support.<\/p>\n

Here is a glimpse at some of our most recent activities:<\/p>\n

Federal Government Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our team has attended several meetings with legislators on protecting the Special Rule for Model Aircraft as the Senate prepares its own version of the FAA reauthorization bill. In addition, we met with stakeholders in the manned and unmanned aircraft communities to gather support for our hobby. Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a long-term reauthorization bill that will strengthen the Special Rule for Model Aircraft and affirm the role of community-based organizations in managing the model aircraft community.<\/p>\n

We also recently met with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to discuss possible solutions for eight of our clubs that have lost flying sites on USACE maintained properties.<\/p>\n

State and Local Government Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the local level, AMA continues to engage with legislators on problematic bills in various states. Recently, we have reached out to local communities in Oceanside, California and Greenwood Village, Colorado to assist with legislative issues. We also provided guidance to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland to help draft a practical UAS ordinance.<\/p>\n

Other Recent Activities<\/strong><\/p>\n

In April, members of AMA\u2019s Government Affairs Team attended\u00a0the 64th<\/sup> Toledo Show: R\/C Model Expo<\/a> in Toledo, Ohio, North America\u2019s largest and longest running R\/C model expo. The team spoke with AMA members about flying model aircraft safely and answered questions regarding the latest on federal, state and local regulations.<\/p>\n

In addition, AUVSI held their annual XPONENTIAL<\/a> show May 1-3 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. While there, the AMA team engaged with industry stakeholders concerning the latest innovations and discussed how to safely integrate UAS into the national airspace.<\/p>\n

As part of International Drone Day, the Minnesota Department of Transportation held their first annual Minnesota Drone Day<\/a> in partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Minnesota Drone Advocacy Council. AMA President Rich Hanson spoke at the event, providing information to the community on the latest drone regulations.<\/p>\n

As the FAA reauthorization legislative process progresses, it is important to remember that it may take months for Congress to arrive at a consensus. We may ask for your help to alert lawmakers on the importance of the hobby during this time, so please continue to monitor your emails, social media and modelaircraft.org\/gov<\/a> for the latest information. You can view how legislation that includes the Special Rule for Model Aircraft is moving through Congress\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thank you again for your support!<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nAMA Government Affairs Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government Affairs Update, May 17, 2018\u00a0 Over the past few months, the AMA Government Affairs Team has been hard at work at the federal, state and local level to protect and preserve our longstanding hobby. Just last month, the House of Representatives passed its version of the FAA Reauthorization Act […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002429,"featured_media":3955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,10,56,7,8,119,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-137","category-congress","category-drone","category-faa","category-misc","category-state-and-local","category-suas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3719,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3718\/revisions\/3719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}