{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-combat-chinese-drone-market-dominance", "Cotton, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Combat Chinese Drone Market Dominance", "2025-07-23", "2025", "2025-07", "Republican", "Senate", "AR", "Tom Cotton", "C001095", "www.cotton.senate.gov", "cotton", "https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE\n\nContact: Caroline Tabler orPatrick McCann (202) 224-2353\n\nJuly 23, 2025\n\nCotton, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Combat Chinese Drone Market Dominance\n\nWashington, DC \u2014 Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Chris Coons (D-Delaware), and John Cornyn (R-Texas) today introduced the Leading Exports of Aerial Drones Act, or LEAD Act, legislation that would make it easier for American companies to sell unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to American allies and partners.\n\n\u201cThe current restrictions on UAS sales to allies and partners are outdated and put American companies at a disadvantage, all while ceding the market to Communist China. This bill will spur American business and innovation while decreasing global dependence on Chinese military technology,\u201d said Senator Cotton.\n\n\u201cDrones aren\u2019t just the future of warfare\u2014as we\u2019re seeing in Ukraine, they\u2019re its present, too. Against the backdrop of increasing alignment between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, we must ensure that the United States and our allies and partner have the weapons systems and munitions we need to defend ourselves. This bill is a first step towards the objective of greater military production, integration, and deterrence for the United States and our allies in an increasingly dangerous world,\u201d said Senator Coons.\n\n\u201cThis commonsense legislation would cut red tape to make drone technology more accessible and foster greater strategic defense cooperation with our allies, and I\u2019m glad to support it,\u201d said Senator Cornyn.\n\nBill text is here.\n\nThe LEAD Act would:\n\nDirect changes to the Arms Control Act, the United States Munitions List, and the Missile Technology Control Regime to require UAS be treated as manned aircraft and separately from missile technology for the purposes of defense transfers.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T14:40:33Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-combat-chinese-drone-market-dominance"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9846310131251812, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}