The Counter-UAS Certification Bottleneck

Congress recently expanded counter-unmanned aircraft system (UAS) authority to state and local law enforcement by amending 6 U.S.C. § 124n. But the statute conditions the exercise of that authority on certification through a “national schoolhouse,” which serves as the “sole certifying authority.” The result is a bottleneck: More than 18,500 state, local, and correctional agencies depend on a single federal schoolhouse that opened in fall 2025 and is projected to certify only about 60 state, local, tribal, and territorial personnel by June 2026. The operational implications are immediate.

Unauthorized drone incursions present risks ranging from surveillance and operational disruption to interference with emergency response and the potential delivery of contraband or other payloads. Correctional agencies across multiple states report a steady rise in drones used to deliver contraband, narcotics, and weapons into secure facilities, as incursions over public venues and critical infrastructure have become increasingly common. These incidents develop quickly and often resolve within minutes, leaving little time to wait for federal personnel or specialized response teams.

A recent Federal Aviation Administration proposal to establish flight restrictions around critical infrastructure, including energy, transportation, chemical, and water treatment facilities, reflects growing concern regarding unauthorized drone activity near sensitive sites. Because these incidents are typically handled at the point of first contact, responsibility for responding largely falls to state and local authorities. A more scalable approach would preserve federal control over standards and oversight while permitting states to deliver accredited training through federally certified instructors.

Police Powers and First Responders

The 10th Amendment reserves general police powers to the states, placing primary responsibility for public safety at the state level. As Federalist No. 45 explains, federal powers were intended to be “few and defined,” while those retained by the states are “numerous and indefinite,” including public safety and internal order. Public events, correctional facilities, and critical infrastructure sites are typically secured by state and local agencies responsible for immediate incident response.

While federal authorities and capabilities remain essential, particularly for complex or coordinated threats, they are not designed to handle every initial encounter. At the point of first contact, effective counter-UAS response depends on state and local personnel having both the training and authority to act. The passage of the Safer Skies Act reflects this reality.

The Statutory Framework

The Safer Skies Act, enacted as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, amended 6 U.S.C. § 124n to extend certain counter-UAS authorities to state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement and correctional agencies. Under defined conditions, notwithstanding certain criminal statutes, trained personnel can detect, identify, monitor, track, disrupt, seize, and, when necessary, destroy unmanned aircraft posing a threat.

Extending that authority to state and local agencies was the right call. The problem is not what authorities Congress authorized but the mechanism it chose to deliver it.

The statute imposes a key condition. Those authorities may be exercised only by personnel who have completed federal training and certification through a “national schoolhouse” designated as the “sole certifying authority.” In effect, the exercise of inherently state functions becomes dependent on the output of a centralized training pipeline.

Supply: The Training Model and Its Limits

Presently, the FBI’s National Counter-UAS Training Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is designated as the national schoolhouse and sole certifying authority. Through a single schoolhouse, the federal government controls the throughput of certified personnel and, as a result, the pace at which state and local jurisdictions can exercise their counter-UAS authorities.

While a single, standardized training standard is appropriate given the airspace, communications, and civil liberties implications of counter-UAS authority, the decision to concentrate delivery of that standard within a single federal training pipeline has inherent limitations. The National Counter-UAS Training Center graduated its first class of approximately 12 officers in November 2025. Even with planned expansion, the FBI has targeted training for only about 60 state, local, tribal, and territorial officers by June 2026, with near-term prioritization focused on major events, including World Cup venues. Set against national demand, that level of output is limited.

To be sure, the current output reflects a newly established program still in its initial operating phase, and throughput will likely increase as the system matures. The FBI should be commended for establishing the National Counter-UAS Training Center and developing a standardized certification framework. Even at full maturity, however, a single federal pipeline cannot generate the volume or geographic distribution required across thousands of state, local, tribal, territorial, and correctional agencies.

Demand: The Operational Consequences

There are approximately 17,500 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States and more than 1,000 additional state and federal adult correctional facilities, a combined universe of over 18,500 distinct entities, before accounting for tribal and territorial agencies.

Staffing requirements within local jurisdictions further increase demand. Agencies require multiple trained operators to account for shift coverage, redundancy, and turnover. The result is a nationwide rollout measured in years, not months. At the current throughput, nationwide coverage is a long-term process.

In jurisdictions without certified personnel, officers may be first on scene but unable to exercise available authorities. In those cases, response options narrow to observation and coordination with federal partners. Even in jurisdictions where trained personnel exist, they may not be immediately accessible. That introduces delays in situations where timing matters. The threats at issue—contraband drops into correctional facilities, surveillance of critical infrastructure, and incursions over mass gatherings—emerge quickly and resolve in minutes.

For example, correctional agencies across multiple states have documented drones delivering narcotics, weapons, and cell phones directly into secure facilities. In several cases, inmates have overdosed within hours of a confirmed incursion. At large public venues, including National Football League stadiums operating under Temporary Flight Restrictions, unauthorized drone incursions have disrupted events and triggered security responses, including temporary suspensions of play and rapid threat assessments. The inability to detect, track, or mitigate a drone can allow a single operator to complete a delivery, conduct surveillance, or create panic before a coordinated response can be mounted.

The Mismatch and the Fix

Extending counter-UAS authority to state and local agencies reflects the reality that states retain responsibility for public safety. However, access to that authority is contingent on federal throughput within a centralized certification process. The pace at which capability is fielded is determined not by local need, but by the capacity and prioritization of federal actors in a federal training system.

The result is a mismatch. Authority and responsibility are broad and belong to state and local actors. Operational capacity, however, remains dependent on a centralized federal certification pipeline, placing the execution of core police functions behind a federally controlled bottleneck.

The centralized certification structure also affects how counter-UAS capabilities are fielded. Under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Counter-UAS Grant Program, $500 million in federal equipment funding is conditioned on the same certification requirement administered through the National Counter-UAS Training Center. As a result, operational capability nationwide remains tied to the output of a single federal certification system.

A more scalable approach, one that aligns operational reality with constitutional structure, is to permit state execution of training and certification under federally prescribed standards and oversight. Instructors would first be trained and certified through the existing federal pipeline. Those instructors would then deliver federally approved training at the state level through programs established by their respective states and accredited by federal authorities. Federal authorities would retain approval over instructors, curriculum, and program accreditation. The approach preserves consistency while increasing capacity. A centralized federal schoolhouse produces operators sequentially through a single pipeline. A state-executed model scales training across jurisdictions by multiplying certified instructors, significantly increasing throughput while keeping standards uniform.

Critics may argue that distributed delivery risks inconsistent outcomes, that instructor drift or curriculum deviation could undermine the standardization that makes certification meaningful. That concern is legitimate but not disqualifying. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Incident Management System demonstrates that federally prescribed standards are deliverable through distributed state execution without sacrificing consistency. The federal government defines the curriculum, establishes instructor qualifications, and sets the national baseline. States deliver. The model works at scale across thousands of jurisdictions.

A state-executed certification framework directly addresses the structural limitations inherent in relying on a single centralized federal schoolhouse to generate nationwide operational readiness. It would not produce immediate nationwide coverage, but it would allow capacity to expand at a pace more consistent with the mission’s scale by shifting delivery from a single federal pipeline to a distributed network aligned with existing state law enforcement structures. That flexibility also permits implementation models tailored to differing state capacity, geography, and operational demand.

Where state capacity is limited, regional consolidation offers a scalable alternative. Existing peace officer standards and training commissions, regional academies, and multi-state consortia could support accredited multijurisdictional programs under the same federal standards and oversight framework. The Counter-UAS Grant Program’s funding mechanism could incentivize exactly that. The centralized model offers no equivalent pathway; jurisdictions underserved today are the same ones least likely to be prioritized as federal throughput slowly expands.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Conclusion

Congress got the diagnosis right. Drone incidents are local problems. State and local officers are first on scene, and extending counter-UAS authority to them was the correct response.

The constraint is not the pace of any one agency; it is the decision to route inherent state police powers through a single federal schoolhouse that can never match the decentralized reality of the threat environment.

A framework that conditions local response authority on centralized federal certification cannot field capability at the scale the operational environment demands. Thousands of jurisdictions need multiple certified personnel capable of responding immediately within their own operating areas. This is a demand profile no single federal pipeline can satisfy.

The fix is relatively straightforward. Federal authorities retain control over standards, curriculum, and oversight. States build certified training programs under that framework. Instructors are credentialed federally and delivered locally. Throughput scales. The authority Congress extended becomes authority agencies can exercise.

Until that structural change, officers will continue arriving at drone incidents they cannot lawfully resolve. A domestic counter-UAS framework that cannot be operationalized at the point of first contact is misaligned with the threat environment it was designed to address.