Sec. 1076. Study on military training routes and special use air space near wind turbines
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It is the sense of Congress that— renewable energy development is expanding rapidly as the United States continues to invest in diversifying its energy portfolio; this expansion has to be carefully considered in its potential impacts to low-level military training routes and special use airspace of the Department of Defense; it is imperative that the United States preserves access to national airspace for military test and training and activities to ensure military readiness while facilitating deployment of renewable energy projects, such as wind turbines, that enhance national and economic security in ways that are compatible with military airspace needs; and the rapid proliferation of wind turbines around the world may require the Armed Forces to develop tactics, training, and procedures for operations in the vicinity of wind turbines in order to exploit potential adversaries’ turbines for tactical advantage.
The Secretary of Defense shall seek to enter into an agreement with a federally funded research and development center to conduct a study to identify low-level military training routes and special use airspace that may be used by the Department of Defense to conduct realistic training over and near wind turbines. As part of the study under paragraph (1), the federally funded research and development center that conducts the study shall— identify and define the requirements for military airspace that may be used for the training described in paragraph (1), taking into consideration— the operational and training needs of the Armed Forces; and the threat environments of adversaries of the United States, including the People’s Republic of China; identify possibilities for combining live, virtual, and constructive flight training near wind projects, both onshore and offshore; describe the airspace inventory required for low-level training proficiency given current and projected force structures; provide recommendations for redesigning and properly sizing special use air space and military training routes to combine live and synthetic training in a realistic environment; describe ongoing research and development programs being utilized to mitigate impacts of wind turbines on low-level training routes; and identify current training routes impacted by wind turbines, any previous training routes that are no longer in use because of wind turbines, and any training routes projected to be lost due to wind turbines.
In carrying out paragraph (1), the Secretary of Defense shall coordinate with— the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness; the Department of Defense Policy Board on Federal Aviation; and the Federal Aviation Administration. Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the federally funded research and development center that conducts the study under paragraph
(1)shall submit to the Secretary of Defense a report on the results of the study. The report under paragraph
(1)shall be submitted in unclassified form but may include a classified annex. Not later than 60 days after the date on which the Secretary of Defense receives the report under paragraph (4), the Secretary shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees an unaltered copy of the report together with any comments the Secretary may have with respect to the report. In this section: The term appropriate congressional committees means the following: The congressional defense committees. The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives. The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate. The term impacted by wind turbines means a situation in which the presence of wind turbines in the area of a low-level military training route or special use airspace— prompted the Department of Defense to alter a testing and training mission or to reduce previously planned training activities; or prevented the Department from meeting testing and training requirements.