By: Dawn Zoldi
The Federal Aviation Administration has just moved to reopen the public comment period on its landmark “Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations” rule. This unexpected reversal comes after the agency formally denied earlier requests for more time and closed the docket last fall. A new, draft Federal Register public inspection entry, scheduled for publication on January 28, 2026, announces the reopening for an additional fourteen (14) days to address issues around electronic conspicuity and right-of-way. (Fun fact: the typical time period under Administrative Procedures Act for public comment is usually 30 days).
For industry, communities and regulators, the move is significant on several fronts. The BVLOS NPRM, built around a new Part 108 framework and related security provisions, drew more than 3,000 comments before the original October 6, 2025 deadline and has been positioned as the blueprint for routine low‑altitude drone operations nationwide. The Department of Transportation previously issued a notice explicitly denying requests to extend that comment period, signaling that stakeholders should not expect additional time. Autonomy Global has covered the draft rule extensively, including its implications for commercial operators, public safety agencies and the broader risk and security architecture of the National Airspace System.
The June 2025 Executive Order (EO), “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” (EO 14099) put BVLOS at the top of the national drone agenda. It imposed aggressive timelines on the FAA to publish a final rule within 240 days of the date of the EO, which pencils out to roughly early February 2026. Adding these additional 14 days for public comments to a reasonable review-and-respond phase will presumably slip that target.
The reopening of comments on BVLOS is the latest in a string of procedural oddities emerging in the FAA’s UAS docket. In January, the agency’s Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for Drone Package Delivery Operations closed at midnight on January 8 with only a dozen posted comments, despite nationwide implications and formal extension requests from multiple state attorneys general. As detailed in Autonomy Global’s coverage, the FAA later issued a separate Federal Register notice extending that same PEA comment deadline to January 23, 2026, but tied it to a new regulations.gov entry that did not incorporate the original 12 comments. This effectively bifurcates the public record.
That episode prompted concerns that the environmental review for drone delivery could move forward on a fragmentary record, sidelining substantive submissions from infrastructure and safety experts. In an OpEd on the PEA’s “blind spot,” Autonomy Global Infrastructure Ambassador Rex Alexander and this author raised red flags about how the draft assessment treated heliports, hospital access and data integrity, warning that the process risked normalizing large‑scale package delivery without fully accounting for safety and infrastructure impacts.
At the same time, the FAA’s evolving approach to UAS airspace management has drawn constitutional scrutiny. A recent nationwide UAS security NOTAM, FDC 6/4375, expanded temporary flight restrictions around certain federal facilities and mobile assets into what amounts to roving, invisible “no‑fly bubbles” for drones. The NOTAM’s undefined reference to “associated escorts,” coupled with broad mitigation authorities (read: counter and anti-drone technology) against UAS near “protected personnel,” has raised serious First Amendment concerns about how the rule could chill newsgathering around events such as ICE raids and other high‑profile enforcement actions. Legal experts interviewed by Autonomy Global have warned that, depending on how it is applied, the NOTAM could function as a de facto ban on drone‑based press coverage in precisely the kinds of politically sensitive contexts where constitutional protections are at their strongest.
Against this backdrop, the decision to reopen the BVLOS NPRM comment period lands as yet another unanticipated development in the UAS regulatory record. Stakeholders who spent months working under a firm October 6 deadline, following DOT’s published denial of extension requests, now face shifting procedural and timing goalposts at a critical stage of rulemaking. For operators like Google Wing, Zipline and DoorDash trying to grow large scale drone delivery operations, communities concerned about local impacts and civil liberties advocates alike, the key questions are whether and how the FAA will reconcile these late‑breaking process changes with bedrock principles of transparency, predictability and meaningful public participation.
As the new BVLOS comment window opens, industry and civil society will have a renewed opportunity to influence the final rule, even as they can navigate the increasingly convoluted path of notices, extensions and overlapping dockets. Autonomy Global will continue to follow the BVLOS rule, the drone delivery PEA and FAA’s expanding UAS security regime, examining not only what the agency regulates but how it conducts the process that shapes the future of low‑altitude airspace.