The Wyoming Senate is considering a bill criminalizing drone operators from loitering over and taking photos of over critical infrastructure.
Sponsored by Sen. Stacy Jones, R-Rock Springs, Senate File 132 would let local law enforcement open cases against some drone operators, or disable drones, and would let the governor send the Wyoming National Guard to fight or “take” suspicious drones as well. Efforts to fight drones would have to be “reasonable” under the bill’s language.
Jones brought the bill because her local Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office approached her about strange drone sightings over the Jim Bridger Power Plant and other locations, which have been ongoing for weeks.
After an early sighting late last year, the sheriff’s office sent several deputies out to photograph large, coordinated drones and seek their operator, Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Lt. Rich Fischer told the Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee during a Tuesday hearing.
The deputies didn’t find the drones’ operator, and they drove back from the power plant to Rock Springs.
The drones followed them.
“One or two of the drones actually followed the deputies back (toward) our justice center, which is located with our detention facility,” said Fischer. Then the drones left.
The devices are “obviously very capable of following for some distance,” he said. “We’re talking 30-some miles from the power plant to our facility, plus the air time the drones had out there.”
The sheriff’s office voiced concern last week in an interview with Cowboy State Daily as well, saying it has been working with state and federal partners and still has no idea what these high-flying, sometimes SUV-sized drones are doing over the county’s key structures and other areas.
Besides the Sweetwater County Sheriff, another seven Wyoming sheriffs told Cowboy State Daily they’ve had reports of suspicious or unaccounted-for drone sightings since late last fall as well. Three of those, including Sweetwater County Sheriff John Grossnickle, reported that the drones had been seen over energy infrastructures.
The committee advanced the bill Tuesday with unanimous approval. It now goes to the state Senate floor.
Bill Does This
The bill would make drone operators face a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and $2,500 in fines the first time they intentionally loiter, photograph, or commit other criminal activity with drones over critical infrastructures.
A second offense would be a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and $5,000 in fines.
The laundry list of critical infrastructures in the bill is lengthy, spanning energy resources like petroleum facilities; plus jails, railroads, military bases, hospitals with life flight services, courts, power plants and stations, communications facilities, chemical manufacturing facilities and water treatment plants.
The committee added language to include mines.
Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas, repeatedly urged the committee to give the bill better protections for hobbyist drone operators, especially surveying energy infrastructures leasing on their own private properties.
“I guess I’ll just come clean,” said Boner in a joking anecdote. “I’ve used my drone to take a picture of an oil rig before.”
He’s flown his drone over energy fields that he’s leased out of his own property. He shot the photo to capture the means and importance of energy extraction in Wyoming, he said.
Acting on these concerns, Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, introduced an amendment to protect landowners flying over their own property. The committee adopted that amendment.
The bill has several carveouts protecting government agencies, law enforcement, emergency medical personnel, hazardous material teams and emergency management efforts from prosecution.
Still Can’t Shoot Them
Devon Brubaker, director of the Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport near Rock Springs and president of the Wyoming Airports Coalition, urged the committee to have a look at federal airspace laws and rules to make sure the state isn’t about to clash with the federal government.
For example, said Brubaker, the bill’s provision letting police and state National Guard members “take” — which could translate to “shoot” —drones clashes with a federal prohibition on destroying aircraft.
The committee didn’t remove that language but took Brubaker up on his offer to work with Jones on further amendments to dodge federal preemption.
Groups representing Wyoming’s petroleum, mining and farming industries all spoke in favor of the bill.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
