H.R. 390: ACERO Act

When a wildfire blows up, the sky above it gets crowded fast. Air tankers, helicopters, spotter planes, and now drones, often from different agencies that can't easily talk to each other. H.R. 390, the ACERO Act, hands NASA a permanent job: build the technology that keeps all those aircraft coordinated.

NASA already runs a project called ACERO — Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations — that tests drones and airspace tools for wildfire response. This bill writes that project into law so it no longer depends on year-to-year discretion.

The work falls into a few buckets: managing and deconflicting the airspace over a fire so aircraft don't collide, sharing fire and aircraft data in real time, building one shared platform every responder can see, and setting up a playbook so federal, state, and local crews coordinate from the air instead of improvising.

There's a hardware catch. NASA generally can't buy drones made or assembled by a "covered foreign entity" — the legal term that captures companies tied to China and other adversaries. NASA can waive that ban case by case, but only if it decides the purchase is in the national interest and tells Congress within 30 days.

NASA has to report what it finds every year through the end of 2030, so lawmakers can see whether the technology is actually making aerial firefighting safer.