{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-america-must-improve-drone-capabilities-as-technology-changes-cost-and-agility-of-war", "King: America Must Improve Drone Capabilities as Technology Changes Cost and Agility of War", "2026-03-06", "2026", "2026-03", "Independent", "Senate", "ME", "Angus S. King, Jr.", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", "angusking", "https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/table", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) emphasized the critical need to improve drone manufacturing capabilities as changing technologies impact the cost and methods of 21st century wars. In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Senator King questioned Mr. Travis Metz, Drone Dominance Program Manager at the Department of Defense (DoD) and Major General Steven Marks, Director at the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group at the DoD, on the research and acquisition of cost-effective drone technology and the impact of these drones on the severity and type of military injuries.\n\nSenator King began the conversation with Metz to discuss the economic realities and current contracting system of the American defense industrial base \u2013 by pointing out that Ukraine is making drones at a fraction of the expense.\n\n\u201cThank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to see a chart of number of units produced per month, in price, from the Ukrainian industry, versus what we are projecting. You mentioned that there have been -- you put out effectively a bid with a proposed price. I want to see the numbers. Can you give us that off the top of your head? How many are the Ukrainians producing a month and what do they costs, versus what we are projecting for this section one production that you have now bidding?,\u201d King questioned.\n\nMetz responded, \u201cIt's an excellent question. So, the Ukrainians last year built roughly 4.5 million drones in total, 4.4 million of them were this, in this size range. We think that they will build about 6 million this year, so 500,000 a month. Historically, most Ukrainian drones are made from components primarily from China, although as I mentioned before they are also concerned about their supply chain vulnerabilities on that. And we think that there per unit pricing, depending on the nature of the FPV, is somewhere between $500 on the low end and the low thousands on the high-end. Our program is designed to, over the six-month cycles, lower prices.\u201d\n\n\u201cLower prices from what? What are the prices now?\u201d King asked in response.\n\nMetz answered, \u201cWe are going to pay $5,000 per drone in phase one, the ones we are going to place orders this week. We intend by the end of this program -- our goal is to get down to less than $2000 for a one-way kamikaze attack drone.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou understand why this is a legitimate question. They are doing it for $500-$1,000, We are talking about $5,000. Do you believe there's a realistic path to getting it down to $2000?\u201d asked King.\n\n\u201cI do. I'm an optimist about the efficacy of the American industrial base when given a good framework and given real orders to go achieve it. I am confident that we will scale the prices down. Where the exact endpoint is, I think that's hard to know a priori. It's fair to say that I would not expect, given the way that the U.S. economy works in terms of labor rates and so forth, I would not expect us to match Chinese drone prices, \u201d Metz responded.\n\nKing concluded, \u201cI understand that, but my experience with large-scale contracting is that if you establish a number up front, miraculously, the companies find a way to meet it. Rather than waiting for them to give you the number.\u201d\n\nSenator King then shared with Chairman Wicker the high percentage of casualties in Ukraine caused by drone technologies.\n\nSenator King said, \u201cThe Wounded Warrior Project has pointed out to me that drone injuries are different than IED injuries, they\u2019re head and upper body as opposed to lower extremities. That's not necessarily a part of your mission, but I hope it is something the department is looking at, the nature of injuries, and the training necessary.\u201d\n\nChairman Wicker followed up, \u201cDo any of you want to weigh in on the question about upper body injuries and what Senator King learned from the Wounded Warrior [Project]? Any of you have any insight on that?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is something that we definitely have to go and look at, Senator. I would be interested to know a bit more about that. That is something that we've got to address as we continue to scale out these autonomous systems,\u201d General Marks replied.\n\n\u201cWell for whose ever is listening in DOD, the point that the Senator made, that someone needs to look at it,\u201d Chairman Wicker responded.\n\nSenator King concluded, \u201cSomething like 75% of the casualties in Ukraine are caused by drones.\u201d\n\nAs a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator King is recognized as an authoritative voice on national security and foreign policy issues. Senator King has previously spoken up about the emerging threats of Russia and China\u2019s development of \u201cnightmare weapon\u201d hypersonic missiles, as technology is changing the face of modern warfare around the globe. He previously urged the Department of Defense (DoD) to take advantage of private sector technologies or risk losing access to innovative defense technologies and encouraged the (DoD) to reevaluate its acquisition process of defense technologies.\n\n###", 1, "2026-04-04T05:28:40Z", "2026-04-04T05:30:10Z"]], "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.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-america-must-improve-drone-capabilities-as-technology-changes-cost-and-agility-of-war"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6295399982482195, "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"}