On May 1, 2026, Coalition for Reimagined Mobility (ReMo) submitted comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission request for comment for Unleashing American Drone Dominance, GN Docket No. 26-74; WT Docket Nos. 22-323 and 24-629.
ReMo comments address a core constraint on U.S. drone leadership, the inability to translate
technical capability into domestic manufacturing and scaled operations.
ReMo’s analysis, including its latest From Waivers to Scale policy brief found that regulatory fragmentation and lack of deployment pathways suppress demand, which in turn weakens the domestic industrial base thus exposing the United States to economic competitiveness and national security risks. This dynamic is consistent with broader industry findings on how uncertain regulatory environments reduce operator investment and prevent domestic manufacturers from achieving economies of scale, reinforcing reliance on foreign supply chains.
The Coalition for Reimagined Mobility’s research consistently finds that spectrum uncertainty and not spectrum scarcity is one of the primary barriers to operator investment. Operators cannot build enterprise-scale operations around spectrum access that may be revoked, repurposed, or subject to interference without clear rules.
It also found that An Innovation Zone like AERPAW is a good testing environment but lacks a structured pathway to go from testing to scaled operations. These are effective for controlled experimentation including enabling repeatability, digital twin validation, and advanced communications testing, but are not designed for multi-operator coordination and corridor-scale deployment. ReMo supports the use of regulatory sandboxes as testing grounds when paired with clear guardrails, standardized performance metrics, and formal policy feedback loops.8 Without these elements, Innovation Zones risk remaining isolated test environments rather than mechanisms for scaling deployment.
Read SAFE’s full comments here.
