Rand Paul warns of growing drone lobby
Why the drone craze recently in the U.S.? Simple: there’s a defense contractor poised to make millions and it has a powerful lobby in Washington.
I would call it a “drone boom,” but that might not be appropriate.
RepublicReport.org reports,
In an interview recorded last week with The Jerry Doyle Show, Paul explained that right before he went on national television to talk about his legislation [to limit, greatly, the use of drones in the U.S.], he received a phone call from lobbyists for drone manufacturers. He explained that Congress should be wary of this lobby because it is making money from the product it is telling lawmakers to vote in favor of:
PAUL: . . . I think even before I went on CNN — we didn’t think we’d announced it anywhere — we got a call before we went on to CNN from a lobbyist for the people who sell drones wanting to have a talk with us, somehow the word got out pretty quickly that we were going to be saying something about limiting what drones could do. People do make money selling stuff like this, you have to be aware that the advice they’re giving to congressmen is not particularly dispassionate that it has something to do making money selling this drone technology. And so we do have to be worried about it.
The report adds that “Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, doubled its lobbying expenditures last year right as it was trying to vastly expand its rights to fly drones over American soil.”