mr wiegmann. today's final witnesses is tanya coultas, deputy associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety at the federal aviation administration at the department of transportation. in her role, she provides executive oversight of national security policies, plans, and programs involving manned and unmanned systems. in addition to several other security related topics. ms. coultas has over 30 years of combined federal executive, local, state, military, and international experience supporting defense intelligence safety, disaster response, and crisis management efforts. previously, ms. coultas served as a senior executive for the dhs national protection and programs directorate (now cisa), office of infrastructure protection and for fema. welcome to the committee. you may proceed with your opening remarks. ms. coultas: sure, okay, plan b. chairman peters, ranking member portman, and members of the committee. thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about the faa's r

mr. wiegmann welcome to the committee.you may proceed with your opening comments. >> thank you -- for the opportunity to testify today on the behalf of the department of justice. we strongly supported administrations legislative proposal to allow us to continue to protect major national events -- to the threat posed by the misuse of drones. this legislation will also, as secretary vinograd just, said to expand our counter drone efforts them -- and to empower our state and local partners to participate in this critical issue. we understand the geo day drones are bringing great benefits to our society and our economy. they are also providing serious risk to the public when misused. we are seeing an increase in the drug use of drones for a wide spectrum of criminal another dangerous activities. they can be weaponized to conduct attacks, using firearms another explosive materials. -- they can conduct espionage and trafficking narcotics-ing contraband. apart from these nefarious uses, drones are often used terrorist carelessly