Drone Infrastructure Inspection Grant Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. STANTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this commonsense, bipartisan legislation, and I thank Chairman DeFazio and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) for working with me on it.

Our country must do a better job inspecting infrastructure. There is a nationwide backlog, and it is because traditional methods of inspecting critical infrastructure are often time-consuming, dangerous, and expensive. Inspections are essential, though, and we have seen tragic results around the country when structural flaws go unnoticed.

Modern technology has given us a great tool that we can use for inspections: Drones. Using a drone to inspect infrastructure in hard- to-reach places, such as underneath bridges, can speed up the inspection process so that we can get through the backlog more quickly, and it can help save money, as well.

In fact, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimate that utilizing drones reduces the cost of infrastructure inspections by 74 percent and the time needed to conduct the inspection by 88 percent.

Not only that, but drone inspections are much safer for the workers than having a human hang under a tall bridge. It is an easy way to improve job safety.

In my home State, the Arizona Department of Transportation has been using drones for several years to inspect hard-to-reach areas on bridges, and survey near highways where falling rocks or ground movements are potential hazards.

What this bill does is simple: It gives more States, Tribes, and local governments the opportunity to use drones. It creates competitive grants to purchase, contract for services, or develop program capability for American-made, small, unmanned aircraft systems to perform critical infrastructure inspection, maintenance, operation, or repair projects. And it provides resources to train the next generation and upskill our existing workforce.

This bill has broad support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Association of State Aviation Officials, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, and many, many others.

I urge my colleagues to support this important bipartisan bill.

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